The Covenant Homeworld
by wutang
Summary: After escaping from Halo, Master Chief and Cortana stumble upon and board a sparsely guarded Covenant cruiser that contains information that leads them to the Covenant homeworld. Ch. 12 up.
1. The discovery

Chapter 1-The Discovery

Author's Note: This fic is set directly after the destruction of Halo.  A lot of technology is also wild speculation. Well, here goes.

          The Longsword interceptor blasted away from the burning, shattered remnants of Halo, which Master Chief had just escaped from moments before.  Inside the fighter, the Spartan II thought about all the good soldiers he had lost on the Forerunner installation.  However, he knew he had to do it, because of the Flood.  There was just a small bit of worry in the corner of his mind, because the Monitor had referred to the Halo he had just destroyed as "installation 4," that could mean there were more Halos still intact within or near human space that the Covenant could use.  He shoved these thoughts into the back of his mind and left Cortana to pilot the Longsword while he prepared the cryo tube for himself.

          "Cortana, alert me if you detect any Covenant presence near our exit point.  Don't try engaging them, either," he ordered the AI.  Her image flickered on over the holoprojector in the cockpit.

          "Don't worry, I can take care of this ship by myself," she said dryly as the Chief entered the cryo tube.

2 weeks later…

          Cortana hurriedly wakened MC from cryosleep as soon as she exited Slipstream space and detected a strange vessel nearby.  The AI had confirmed the shape to be exactly like that of a Covenant cruiser.  When the tube hatch hissed open, MC sat up amid the fog that seeped out of the cryo tube.   He choked on the cryo inhalant as it flowed out of his mouth.  "Please swallow, sir.  That inhalant is nutritious."  Cortana's voice said.  _How many times have I heard that?_  he thought as he tried to follow the AI's instructions.

          He walked over to the pilot's seat and drew in a breath shakily.  Cortana's image appeared on the holoprojector as the Chief asked his question.

          "What's going on?  Is it the Covenant?"  Cortana looked at him with an obvious expression on her face.

          "Why else would I wake you up?" she answered.  "It's a Covenant cruiser.  I wonder why it hasn't detected us by now.  Wait a moment…" she paused, calculations running across her body.  "Interesting.  It appears to be powered down.  Maybe we should go in for a closer look," she suggested.

          "Hold on.  It might be a trick!"  exclaimed the MC suddenly.   After about a few minutes of arguing, he finally gave in and went along with her plan, although first doing a check of the vessel.  "Cortana, scan that ship for lifeforms," he ordered.

          "Scanning…only 30 lifeforms detected," she reported.  "They appear to be of the Elite class.  If you want, I can fly us in one of those shuttle bays.  One of them is open," the AI explained.

          "Do it." he said.  The Longsword accelerated towards the bay.  Upon landing, the MC grabbed his MA5B assault rifle and M6D pistol before exiting.  Fortunately, the Longsword held several crates of 7.62mm rounds for the assault rifle and 12.7mm rounds for the pistol, so if he got into a fight with one of those Elites, he would not be limited in ammunition.  He took 3 packs of each and grabbed the chip containing Cortana before heading out.  He stepped into a large shuttle bay identical to the Truth and Reconciliation's, a cruiser that had held Captain Keyes prisoner on Halo.  Just thinking of the Captain brought back memories of the Flood.  He remembered what Chief Mendez, his trainer back on Reach, had told him: never get distracted in a dangerous area.  Kill first.  Everything else comes second. Feeling foolish, he ducked down behind a crate of some sort and loaded his assault rifle.

          "Activate motion trackers," the MC said.  

_Activating._  Cortana's voice said inside his helmet.  The Chief watched the motion tracker display pop up on his HUD.  It showed that everything was clear.  He knew better than to trust it completely, since the Elites could be resting.  Normally they would be patrolling, but since they were unaware of the human on board, they would think all was safe.  There was probably only a few Elites piloting the vessel in the control room.  "Cortana, scan for nearby lifeforms."

_Scanning…all clear._ Cortana reported.  Satisfied, he headed toward one of the bay doors, then stopped.  "Cortana, you know the schematics of a Covenant cruiser, right?" MC asked the AI.

_Of course, Master Chief.  We've been on one before.  Why?_ answered the AI.

          "I need a nav point marking the control room's position."

          _Acknowledged, Chief. Just give me a moment to access the schematics. _Cortana said.  In a few seconds, an orange-red dot appeared on his HUD.  It showed the distance, 503.2m.

          "503.2 meters…that's not too far." the Chief said, reading the display.  _But what about those Elites Cortana detected before?_ he thought.  "Cortana, one last thing…set another nav point, if you can, marking some sort of resting area for Elites."

          _Marking now, Master Chief.  What would you do without me? _the AI reported.

          He watched another dot pop up.  It read: 371.4m.  He decided to go there first, since it was closer.  Making sure his weapons were fully loaded, he went off silently.

          In the familiar purple halls of a Covenant starship, he made his way towards the nav point.  All the doors were unlocked, so he progressed fairly quickly through the long hallways.  Suddenly, he entered a cargo bay of some sort, where a black-armored Spec Ops Elite was standing in front of a control panel.  Sneaking up behind it, he whacked the alien in the back with the butt of his assault rifle, killing it instantly.

          After checking to make sure the room contained no more enemies, he shouldered his assault rifle and headed towards the nav point once more.  Checking his HUD, he saw that it was only 43.2m away.  He walked through several more corridors before reaching his goal.

          The door to the Elite quarters slid open as the Chief slipped in noiselessly.  There were about 20 inside, all slumbering and unaware of him.  He smacked the nearest two Elites in the back, killing them all.  Stopping to look around, he noticed that most of the Elites were Spec Ops, although there were two Commanders.  

_I wonder why these are all high-ranking Elites? _he though as he proceeded to the next alien.  

          _This is probably a team sent on some special mission. _ Cortana read his thoughts and provided a logical answer to the question.  As Master Chief prepared to whack another Elite, in the dim lights of the room he did not notice he was hitting its face, not its back!  He only realized his mistake when he saw the Elite clutch its side, with a large dent in its combat armor.  Although its shields were not on, the Spec Ops armor could take at least one hit, even from the Master Chief.  Its shields flickered on as it grabbed its plasma rifle and began to shoot at the Chief.  This awakened the rest of the Elites.

          _Oh, shit… _he thought as he shot at the Elite.  He was surrounded by a group of 18 snarling, pissed off aliens.  Four moved to cover the door, and the Commander grabbed a plasma sword.  In a cramped room like that, he could not use a grenade and he only had an assault rifle, plasma rifle and pistol.  Not nearly enough firepower to take down 16 Spec Ops and two Commanders with plasma swords!  Hopelessly outgunned, he crouched for cover behind a crate when he saw one of the Commander Elites leap at him, plasma sword at the ready!


	2. A brush with death

Chapter 2-A Brush with death

          The Chief ducked as the Commander swiped at him with his sword, instead slicing through the Elite that was sneaking up behind him.  While the alien readied itself for another attack, MC unloaded a hail of plasma from his rifle, taking out half of its shield.  As the Elite charged, sword held out in front, he ran up, smacked it and ducked away once more.  While trying to stab the Chief, the Commander buried his plasma blade into the floor, melting a huge hole into the floor.  The hits it suffered had only taken down its shield, but a headshot from the Chief's pistol put it down.

          _That hole looks like an ideal escape route! _ Cortana yelled urgently.  Without a look back, he jumped down, landing onto a lower deck.  He placed a grenade on the floor and took cover.  The Elites that had followed him down were blown to bits.  No more came down, but the MC didn't want any more Elites harassing him, so he chucked another grenade up into the Elite quarters.  He then jumped up, grabbed hold of the edge of the hole and hauled himself up.  There were only a few wounded Elites left, which he dispatched without much trouble.  Noticing what looked like a weapons rack, he grabbed a plasma sword and ran towards the other nav point, leading to the control room.

          After more hallway trekking, he finally reached the large door to the control room.  As it slid open, he noticed eight Spec Ops Elites and a Commander waiting for him.  They obviously had noticed the commotion and knew that he would come for the control room.  The huge barrage of plasma cut down his shields in an instant.  He rolled to one side and let it recharge before stepping out and throwing a grenade.  All the Elites rolled out of the way, but it provided a distraction.  He grasped the plasma sword, found and pressed the activation button and charged as the smoke cleared.  He reached the first Elite and chopped downwards with the sword, slicing right through its shields and armor.  As the other Elites opened fire, he threw another plasma grenade, sticking it to the Commander.  Unfortunately, it charged right for him.  He rolled to one side to get out of the blast radius, but was still hit, although minimally.  With his shield gone and with no time to recharge, the plasma from the remaining seven Elites burned away at his armor.  He could taste blood in his helmet.  

          "What's your suggestion, Cortana?" he yelled as he slashed at a nearby Elite.

          _I suggest throwing another grenade to distract them, and then dive into that hallway.  That'll give your shields a chance to recharge.  _the AI replied over while the Chief rolled to avoid being fried by another volley of plasma.

          "But I only have one left!  If I use it now, I won't have much more to fight them with when I come back!" the Chief emptied his assault rifle clip into the nearest Elite.

          _Well, maybe you can go back to those Elite quarters.  That weapons rack where you got that sword has a bunch of grenades.  Hurry up, before you're dead!  _

          The Chief took the suggestion, throwing his remaining grenade into the group of enemies and sprinting for the main door.  He fired as he went, to keep their heads down.  When he got into the hallway, he gave a sigh of relief.  "We're safe now," he said, heading for the Elite quarters. 

          _Or is IT?  Look at your motion tracker!_

          When Master Chief looked at the tracker, he froze in his tracks.  The Elites were following him!  He would never make it to the quarters without getting turned into alien mincemeat.  Suddenly, a plan came to his mind.  _In these tight hallways, I can use my plasma sword to cut them down, one by one, _the Chief thought.  With that idea, he took out his plasma sword and powered it up.  _I hope this works, he thought as the Elites approached._

          As the enemy drew nearer, he ran back behind a corner in the wall.  When the aliens were within striking distance, he leapt out and chopped downwards at the nearest one.  The next dodged, and the rest opened fire.  In the tight hallways, MC had little room to run but this advantage was also a double-edged sword.  Sometimes the Elites would hit each other, providing him with a diversion as they were momentarily stunned by the friendly fire.  After a minute or so, there were only three Elites left.  They had cornered him and were all striking MC with the butts of their plasma rifles.  As his shield was smashed to nothing, he kicked out at one of the Elites.  With the Chief's enhanced strength plus the added power of the MJOLNIR armor, the Elite went flying and hit the wall with a dull thud, a huge depression in his armor where the MC had kicked him.

          The other two Elites growled and smashed him harder.  Two more sword slashes and they were silenced.  The other Elite stirred.  MC dragged him to one of the brigs on the ship, binding him with the plasma chains he had found in the Elite quarters.  It wriggled and growled, but could not break loose.  Satisfied, he closed the cell doors and headed back to the bridge, picking up grenades from the Elite bodies as he went. 

          The Chief stared at the huge array of symbols, control panels, and displays that surrounded the control room of the ship.  __

_Wait a moment, there seems to be some sort of AI plug-in slot over there.  I suggest putting me in.  I have considerable knowledge of a cruiser like this.  Without much argument, he walked over to the slot, took the chip containing Cortana out of his helmet and plugged it in.  Cortana's image appeared in the center of the room.  Calculations ran all across her body as she accessed her databanks.  After a minute she managed to get the ship moving, and they rumbled off towards the nearest human settlement._


	3. Return to civilization

Chapter 3-Return to civilization

          "Are you sure this is a good idea?  That is, they could have some sort of tracking device planted on this ship." At first he had been willing to go along with Cortana's plan, but now that he had thought it over, he became skeptical.

          _I've done a thorough scan of the ship, _Cortana replied. _I'm sure we're untracked._

          "But what about cryo chambers?  The trip could take weeks!" the Chief argued.

          _Covenant ships have always been fast.  I estimate it will take two days to reach the nearest human colony.  Besides, you can use one of the Elite cryo chambers if you prefer that to standing around._

          After that, Cortana spent a few minutes figuring out how to send the ship into Slipspace.  When she finally found out how, the ship disappeared in a flash of green light.

          MC had a hard time deciding what to do for two days.  The weapons and shields of the cruiser however, fascinated the Chief.  He had long hated ships for being cannon fodder for the Covenant.  But with defenses similar to that of his suit, he could feel safer against the plasma bombardments.  Besides, the scientists would be interesting in an intact Covenant ship, not to mention a live Elite.  He also toyed around with the weapons of the ship, which were obviously more powerful than the UNSC's.  Suddenly, he remembered Reach, were he had left all his teammates and friends.  They were probably all dead by now, so he tried to shove those thoughts out of his mind.

          Cortana was busy with her own projects.  She had mastered controlling the vessel and was itching to fire a weapon or two.  The form of FTL travel that the aliens used intrigued the AI.  It allowed more pinpoint adjustments in Slipspace, unlike the sometimes inaccurate Slipstream generators the humans used.  It was also much faster.  After she grew bored of doing that, she accessed the ship's coordinate databank.  Suddenly she remembered the mission the Chief was really sent on.

          _Chief!  CHIEF!  Did you forget our original mission?  We were supposed to board a Covenant vessel to find their homeworld!  I think we just did that accidentally!_

          MC jumped up suddenly, as if hit by plasma.  "You're right!  We could do it now!"

          _NO, we couldn't!  First we have to get back to human civilization.  We can tell someone first that we're still alive and what happened on Halo!  Also, if we were destroyed, I have lots of information, you, well, you're the Master Chief, and this vessel and the Elite could be interesting for the researchers!  We could develop ship-based shields, our own plasma weapons-_

          "All right, we'll go back first.  But we have to do it someday.   We have the information, and it has to be used," the Chief interrupted.

          After a while spent exploring the ship, MC decided to try out the Elite cryo chambers.  He remembered the disgusting "nutritious" inhalant and decided not to ask Cortana about it.  He climbed into the tube and had Cortana activate it.

***

          The cryo tube hissed open.  _Rise and shine, Chief.  How did you enjoy your alien sleep?_

          "Not much difference," the Chief replied.  "One thing I like about it-none of that sickening mucus-flavored inhalant.  Well, are we near a colony yet?" 

          _Yes, we are near the colony Sigma Octanus IV.  You've been here before, haven't you?_

          "I have.  Oh, and before landing, identify us to avoid any confusion.  It's not every day that humans pilot Covenant cruisers into a colony!" he suggested.

          _Affirmative, Chief.  They've confirmed our identity. Unfortunately, there aren't any docks big enough to fit this cruiser.  I propose we pilot a Longsword down._

          Before long, the Chief was back on solid ground again.  The commanding officer in the area was a Captain, Richard Jones, who rushed up to greet the Chief.  MC saluted.

          "At ease, soldier.  I thought all the Spartan-IIs were destroyed when Reach fell.  And what's with the Covenant ship?" the Captain asked curiously.

          "It's a long story, Captain.  I need to get in touch with the existing command group of the UNSC," the Chief cut through the questions.

          "Well, FLEETCOM was destroyed, along with Reach…let me see here…from what I see, the current command center is a cruiser, the _Maw_, which is in orbit around Earth with the remnants of the UNSC fleet.  I'll send them a message.  Follow, please." The Captain ran off to the COM station.

          Inside the station, Captain Jones patched a message through to the _Maw_.  He relayed the responding message to the MC's Longsword.

          "Chief, the commanding officer is Admiral Stanforth.  He has commanded a cruiser before, the _Leviathan_, so he has considerable experience.  He was one of the few who escaped from Reach.  He requests you rendezvous with him in the Earth system as soon as you can get there.  He was also surprised that you captured an intact Covenant cruiser and is eager to see it.  Jones out."  The Longsword's viewscreen shut off as the Chief took off, heading for the cruiser.  Upon arriving, he rushed up to the control room, where Cortana waited.

          "Cortana, our orders are to-"

          _I know, Chief.  I was listening in on the message.  I've finally figured out how the COM systems on this ship work.  Anyway, I'll send a message to the _Maw_ to let them know we're coming._

          "So, how long will it take for us to arrive?" the Chief wanted to know.  "I mean, whether or not I have to get in a cryo tube again."

          _I estimate five, maybe six days.  I think you should get in a tube.  I also found out that their cryo tube does not require inhalant to keep your nutrients up, so you can be happy about that.  I'll wake you when we arrive._

          Once again, MC clambered into a cryo tube as the cruiser shot in a flare of green light.

Five days later…

          The Chief awoke and headed up to the brig to check on the Elite.  It was still alive.  The Chief found food and drink for it, and left it in the cell.  Bound by the plasma chains, it glared at him as the cell doors activated back on.

          Running back onto the bridge, he watched the image of Earth on the holographic display screen.  Around it, three cruisers, six cruisers and ten frigates orbited, along with 15 Mark VI Super MAC guns, which had even more power than the Mark Vs that had defended Reach.  On the moon, he saw two enormous guns, each three times the size of a cruiser.  _What powers those things? _wondered the Chief.

          _My analysis indicates there is a large fusion reactor that feeds them with power._

          "Oh, ok.  Cortana, put this ship in orbit with those other ships.  Then we'll take the Longsword and dock with the _Maw_," MC ordered.  Suddenly, a large explosion rocked the ship.  "What's going on?  Did that Elite break loose and do something weird?"  They saw all the MAC guns in orbit and the ones on the moon glow red as the magnetic accelerators powered up.  He realized that it was the small fleet, firing at him!

          The Chief turned on the COM channels to stop them, but instead he heard, "What the hell is THAT doing here?  Blow that SOB to pieces.  NOW!"  

          "No, wait!  It's me, the Chief!  And Cortana!  We're sending identification data now.  Hold your fire!" the Chief yelled urgently into the COM system.

          "WHAT?  I thought you were dead!  And you come back?  WITH A COVENANT SHIP?" the voice of a Captain.  "Aw man, I'm never eating mess hall meals again, they're giving me hallucinations!"

          "It's NOT a hallucination, it's real!  I got a message earlier, and I told you it WASN'T an enemy!  Master Chief, report to the _Maw_ as soon as possible." Admiral Michael Stanforth's voice could be heard on all the COM channels.

          Cortana maneuvered the cruiser into orbit with the other ships.  The Chief yanked out the chip, placed it back in his helmet and ran to the shuttle bay.  Within minutes he was on the _Maw_, standing in the Admiral's office.  He was relieved to be in there, because he passed hallway after hallway of gaping Marines and crew.

          "Well, Master Chief, you're still alive.  It's a good thing you captured that Elite and cruiser.  We might get a lot of good things out of it.  We already have scientists working on engineering shield tech for our own ships.  Oh, and there's one thing I should mention-"

          Another Spartan, wearing the same suit as the Chief, stepped into the room.  MC recognized him immediately, even though he was in armor.

          "James?  What?  I thought you were dead when your jetpack got hit over Reach…" his voice trailed off as he looked at his long-lost teammate.

          James smiled beneath his helmet. "Me?  Dead?  That's an insult!  I was picked up by a passing dropship before my oxygen supply ran out.  I probably would have died in the next few minutes, since I was already unconscious.  So, what's your story?"

          The Chief sat down and took a deep breath, then told them all.  About their escape from Reach, Halo, the Flood, the battle for survival, the fate of Captain Keyes, setting off the _Pillar of Autumn_'s reactors, capturing the Covenant cruiser, and the return to civilization.


	4. Plans

Chapter 4-Plans

          "-which is why we have to strike their homeworld as soon as possible," Admiral Stanforth explained as he sat in the briefing room of the _Maw_ with the two SPARTANs and the entire ship's company of Marines.  "We can't risk having the Covenant attacking us.  Even with the new Super MAC guns and the lunar guns,  this is what would happen if a Covenant strike force of 200 ships, which I presume they still have, would do."  He gestured toward a holoprojector in the middle of the room.  A simulated battle sprang on, with the two sides clearly visible.  The Chief, James and the Marines all watched in horror as the Covenant vessels destroyed ship after ship.  Although taking heavy losses, they destroyed all the orbital and lunar guns with two dozen remaining ships, which glassed the holographic Earth.

          "Thank you, Cortana, for creating this holographic simulation.  For your information, people, with her knowledge of Covenant tactics this simulation is 93.7% accurate.  Some of you might think we can sit around and build more ships, but without any more major shipyards, we can't just wait for more ships to roll of the production line.  Now, as you know, we have captured an intact Covenant cruiser and a live Elite!  Our scientists have successfully developed a shield system for ships.  The _Maw_ will be the first to use this new technology.  The SPARTAN's suits also have shields, but we had trouble creating it for conventional Marines.  With the captured Elite's armor, we found that there was a different type of Covenant shield that could be easier to mass-produce. Cortana will explain further on this matter." the Admiral directed their attention to the AI, who was hovering above the holoprojector.

          She point to a nearby viewscreen that contained the blueprints for an armor suit.  "This will be your new armor, Marines.  It has the new integrated shield system.  It will not be as powerful as the SPARTAN's," She stopped to point at them before continuing.  "The old Marine armor could not support even the smallest shields, so we expanded the battery pack's size to support a small shield.  It will provide more protection, though, as will your suit itself.  We managed to research the Elite's combat armor too, since this one was not killed and full of holes.  The result is a lightweight and powerful alloy know as protitanium, which is much more resistant to high heat.  The helmet also has extra armor and you can switch between a one eye or two eye HUD.  The suit itself weighs 25 pounds, 5 pounds more than your old armor.  I, for one, think the all the advancements and advantages make up for this.  You'll get used to it.  We are also working on a suit similar to the Chief's that can be vacuum-sealed against space or toxins.  It will weigh approximately 6-8 pounds more than your new suit, but you won't require any special muscular enhancements like the Chief to use either one of these new suits."

          As the AI finished talking, excited murmurs could be heard in the crowd of Marines, who all seemed eager to try on their new suits.  Some stood up, requesting to check out the new armor.  When the Admiral gave them permission, they all marched off to the Armory as quick as they could.

          After a while, all the Marines were in their new suits.  Cortana suggested a quick drill in the firing range of the cruiser.  As they ran around, getting used to the increased weight, MC remarked to James, "You know, they look like us when we first got our armor."

          "Yeah, and I think we actually might stand a chance now against the Covenant, both in space and on the ground!" he replied.

***

          Following an hour of toying around with their new suits, everybody filed back into the briefing room for information on their mission.  Admiral Stanforth was waiting for them.  When they all settled down, he began.

          "Men, our mission is a highly unusual and dangerous one.  It will require a great amount of skill, power, and luck.  Are you all ready for this?"

          "Sir, yes sir!"

          "All right then.  Settle down and listen, because this will take a while.  As you know, we have the coordinates to the Covenant's homeworld.  The Covenant cruiser will slip in with a bunch of Marines and the two SPARTANs on board.  We'll have the Elite too as identification.  Once they slip in onto the planet, they will attempt to disable any planetary weapons they have and Cortana will disrupt communications.  When they have caused chaos around the planet, the cruisers _Aurora_ and the _Maw_ will engage any enemy vessels as long as possible while the other ships will stay to guard Earth.  These two ships will have double shields and an extra meter of armor in an attempt to last as long as possible in battle.  While those ships are occupying the enemy ships, the SPARTANs and their team of Marines will try to capture the Covenant leadership or their "Prophet" caste and return before they are noticed.  Know this, people, the window of opportunity is small on the planet.  It is estimated those two ships can last at most two hours before having to jump out of the system because of critical damage.  If you do not complete your task within that time, **you will** be on a hostile planet full of angry aliens, and there **will not** be sufficient time to get help to you.  Good luck, men.  You have four days to prepare."

          After the Admiral finished his speech, the Marines piled out, muttering quietly amongst themselves.  The two SPARTANs followed.  Everyone, even the legendary super soldiers, was extremely nervous as they exercised for the following mission.

          Around the _Maw_, all the ships were being refitted with the shields.  The orbital guns also received the upgrade.  Cargo ships headed toward all of the ships, bringing the new armor.  All ships also received the new form of FTL travel adapted from the Covenant technology, the Slipspace modifiers.  Morale was running high with all the improvements, and the fleet was readying for the attack on the Covenant.

          "This mission can't have another snag!  We've already lost one chance when Reach fell, but now we're ready, with new technology and extra help!" James said excitedly.  He was confident that they would complete the mission that was assigned to the SPARTANs almost a four months ago.

***

          "We have more good news, people.  Success has been made with experiments on plasma weapons.  Here I have the MA5BP assault rifle.  It looks pretty normal on the outside, but there is an extra battery pack on the outside.  It charges the bullets with plasma, making it much more powerful.  You will still need ammo clips and battery packs for it.  We also have the M19P SSM Rocket Launcher, which, instead of containing explosives, can have its rockets charged in plasma.  It will require a large power cell, however, making it 4 pounds heaver than the M19.  The damage caused will be devastating, making up for that.  Finally, there is the M6DP Pistol.  It utilizes the same plasma power-up the other two have, and the battery is integrated with the clip.  It will be much smaller, and will only last 10 shots, which is the same amount of bullets this new clip has.  Larger versions of this plasma technology will also be mounted on all remaining UNSC ships."  A weapons tech walked around the briefing room, holding up various weapons.

          "Are we going to use these on our mission?" asked a Marine.

          "Yes.  It will be substantially more effective against the Covenant shields of the Jackal and Elite types.  Also, it will be more damaging against the Hunters, so you don't have to take a lot of ammo to take one down of those things," replied the tech.

          As the troops ran to the firing range to test their new weapons, most of them were thinking that the mission was perfect.  With all the new stuff, what could go wrong?  Only the Spartans and veteran Marines knew that the mission could turn around in an instant.


	5. Snags

Chapter 5-Snags

          "All right, _Aurora_, let's move out.  Chief, are you guys ready?" the Admiral's voice said through the COM channels.  MC, inside the captured Covenant ship with a squad of veteran Marines and James, were to be the strike team that would hopefully capture or kill the Covenant prophet leadership, since they were probably the ones who directed the highly religious Covenant.

          "Yes, we're ready.  Cortana is uploading the coordinates to the homeworld into your nav databases.  As soon as you get those coordinates, we move out," the Chief replied.  A few seconds later, the trio of ships disappeared a bright green flash.

          On the alien cruiser, the Marines were busy exploring the strange ship, which they had never been on before.  They also had brought the captured Elite along.  It would be used as identification.  They still had it in the plasma chains, so it couldn't break loose and regain control of the vessel.  

          Cortana advised them to use the newly installed human cryo tubes, developed on the Elite tube but not exactly the same because the scientists were not sure what side effects the alien cryo tube might have on the occupants.  Fortunately for the Marines and SPARTANs, they did not have to swallow the inhalant surfactant, which they hated.

          After a while spent hacking into the Covenant battlenet and screwing up their chatter pretty badly, Cortana began to get bored.  She had gone through the ship's schematics and knew how to fire the weapons, do pinpoint maneuvers in Slipspace and had also altered the ship's computer so that its automated guns would fire on other Covenant ships, which the computer would have originally identified as friendly craft.  However, she shut the guns down because they would just attract attention if they fired on Covenant ships, presumed to be orbiting around their homeworld.  She decided to elaborate on the plan to go down on the planet and decided to tell it to the troops when they arrived.

***

          A few days later, the three ships, two human and one Covenant, emerged from Slipspace.  On their viewscreens was a blue-green world, which was surrounded by…

Nothing.

          "What the HELL is going on here?  This is definitely NOT the Covenant homeworld!  My ship's scanners say there are only a few SMALL Covenant settlements on this-this what the crap is this, anyway?" the Captain of the _Aurora_ yelled angrily through the COM channel.

          _Uh, sorry people.  This appears to be some sort of colony.  I must have gotten the coordinates screwed up.  I'll transmit the proper nav data to-_

          "Sir!" the communications officer on the _Maw_ suddenly interrupted Cortana's message.  "I've just received a distress call from a merchant ship, the _Atlantis_.  Covenant hackers downloaded their nav database!  The ship suffered no physical damage, but they probably know the location of Earth by now!  The ships around Earth are in full combat state, and are requesting our help.  They are expecting an attack any day now!  They are powering up the orbital and lunar guns, too!"

          "Why didn't those idiots erase their database?" asked the pissed off Admiral.  

          "The Cole Protocol only applies to UNSC vessels, sir. That was a civilian ship," replied the COM officer shakily.

          "All right then. Everyone listen up, this is the Admiral speaking.  I want a full retreat back to the Earth system at best speed.  We have to get there before the Covenant.  Well, don't just stand at your stations, do something useful!" the Admiral ordered through the COM channel.  Everyone on the bridge of the _Maw_ jumped, trying to look as if they were busy or helping in some way.

          Cortana decided not to waken the two SPARTANS and Marines from cryosleep.  After all, they were heading back to the Earth system and she didn't need any help piloting.  She checked on the Elite; it was still in a cell of the secondary brig.  She wakened a Marine to bring it food because it had to be alive for identification later when they continued their mission.  After he climbed back into his cryo tube, Cortana calculated the odds of winning the battle for Earth should the Covenant attack with 200 ships.  It had changed since the early simulation of the battle because of all the defensive and weapon upgrades.  The chance was now around 70%.  Since all the crews were in cryosleep, she sent the data to the _Maw_'s AI, Havoc, another "smart" AI like her.  Then she sent it to the _Aurora_'s AI, Mugatu, who was not smart and was quite obnoxious, a little like Beowulf, an ONI AI whom Cortana loathed.   The ONI and Beowulf were gone now though, and Cortana was privately happy.  They had been too secretive and paranoid.

          Havoc acknowledged the information, but Mugatu, being the annoying AI he was, replied with a message that aggravated Cortana.  _Thanks for the info, but I could have figured that out by myself_.  She decided not to respond.

***

          As soon as the three ships exited Slipspace, in perfect formation, the AIs wakened crews and did scans of the area.  The Covenant had not attacked…yet.  When the crew arrived on the bridge, the AIs told them the odds of winning against 200 Covenant ships.  The Admiral ordered the ships to stay in orbit around Earth.  All the ships were in full combat status.  Everyone on the vessels, even the battle-hardened Admiral, was tense, expecting to Covenant to arrive in the next second.

          A day went by without any problems.  As the Admiral was having a quick breakfast in his office, Havoc's voice spoke through the speakers of the _Maw_. 

          _Objects detected along the edge of Earth system.  Shape matches known Covenant profiles.  153 vessels confirmed.  All crew to your stations._  The AI sent the warning to all the ships in the small UNSC fleet, and then continued speaking.  _Enemy vessels at extreme range.  In range of lunar guns.  They will fire on your command, Admiral._  By now Admiral Stanforth had rushed up to the bridge of the _Maw_ and was sizing up the situation.

          "Send the order to fire, Havoc," he ordered.

          _Firing now, Admiral_.  reported the AI.  Two huge flashes of the plasma-charged MAC rounds, each 6,000 tons, erupted from the enormous guns.  All eyes were on the bright blue streak as it covered the distance between them and the Covenant fleet. 

          _Impact will be in 16.9 seconds.  They will also be in range of the orbital guns in 13.2 seconds.  They are all charged and ready to fire on your command once again, sir._

          "Tell them to fire as soon those bastards get close enough," the Admiral said harshly.  A few seconds later, the guns fired in unison and 15 deadly blue flashes sped toward the massed Covenant fleet.  By now the first two shots had covered almost all the distance.  Some ships moved out of the way, but with the tight formation they had earlier many were in the path of the arcs of flame.

          The first shot drilled through two destroyers and four frigates, shattering the hulls of two and completely disintegrating the rest.  The second destroyed a cruiser and three destroyers.  One of them took the shot in their reactors, and it disappeared in a fiery explosion. Their shields were almost completely useless against the huge, supercharged projectiles.  When they regrouped to retaliate, the orbital guns' shots impacted.  Thirteen more ships disappeared from the Admiral's tactical display.

          By now, the Covenant were in range of the small fleet's guns.  They fired their smaller plasma-energized rounds.  It would rip through the shields and severely damage a Covenant ship, making them easy targets for Archer missiles.  Although one of the weapons not upgraded, the shield-less and damaged ships would be destroyed.  The Covenant recovered from the shock of loosing so many ships and fired back.  Only a third of them could fire, otherwise those in the back would hit their own.  They spread out so they could all fire.

          Two UNSC frigates were blown to pieces.  Another orbital gun had its shields hit four times.  It gave and three more shots turned it into a flaming, half-disintegrated wreck.

          The remaining 14 orbital guns and 17 ships fired in unison, sending 31 shots into the Covenant fleet.  35 ships were destroyed.  The lunar guns were still charging, but their shields were more powerful than five orbital guns combined and it had seven added meters of protitanium, so it was considered safe.  The Covenant fired again.  Another two frigates and two destroyers were hit and shattered to pieces.  There were only 13 ships left.  _Just our luck, to get the unlucky number,_ thought the Admiral.

          "All ships, the lunar guns are now charged and ready to fire.  We need one huge last salvo with the ships and orbital guns firing along with them.  On my mark, 3, 2, 1, MARK!" the Admiral yelled into the COM system.  Since all were firing at once, the shots looked like one solid, boiling blue mass of energy.  The fifty-odd lingering Covenant ships were hit by the salvo.  Most were utterly annihilated, and the few heavily damaged remaining ships were brought down by Archer missiles.

          The Admiral gave a huge sigh of relief.  They had successfully defended against the Covenant onslaught.  

          Or…had they?


	6. Not another Reach

Chapter 6-Not another Reach

          There were cheers on the bridge on the Maw as the last Covenant ship faded from the tactical viewscreen.  Congratulations were given across the COM channels as they rejoiced in victory.  Everyone settled back.  The danger of a serious Covenant attack was not gone, but they had stalled their attempts, at least for the time being.  They relaxed, readying for the mission they had first embarked on.

***

          The mission had to be delayed as ships were repaired in the Mars shipyard.  Another orbital gun was being constructed to replace the destroyed one.  In the shipyard, two new ships were being constructed.  They both were destroyers and were also completely outfitted with two meters of protitanium, heavy shields and twin plasma-MAC guns.  They also had 30 Archer missile pods, each with a dozen missiles.  The new destroyers would accompany the original striketeam that would attack the homeworld.  It would take another two weeks to finish them, so the elite ground force, which included the veteran Marines and the two SPARTANs, continued to train.  Morale was higher than ever after the recent victory.  The fleet patrolled the area in case the Covenant struck again.

          "Sir, our scanners are indicating 20,000 small objects on approach in Slipstream space, heading towards this system," the officer at the scanner station yelled to the Admiral.

          "What the hell?  Can you identify them?" asked the confused Admiral.

          "No, sir.  If they're Covenant, it's probably dropships, because of their size.  But I doubt it can be 20,000 dropships," the officer replied.

          "I don't think anything that numerous would enter Slipstream space if it was natural," said the nav officer, who had been listening in.

          "Who asked you, now get back to-" the Admiral stopped as motes of green light appeared near Mars.  Thousands of the familiar purple Covenant dropships emerged from Slipspace.

          "They're going to invade Mars.  That's one of our last shipyards!  Havoc, get firing solutions for the orbital and lunar guns, on the double!" ordered the Admiral after he recovered from the shock of seeing so many dropships.

          _Sir, they're too close to the planet.  We can't afford to fire; the chance of hitting Mars is too great._

          "Well then, get us there as fast as you can!  At least we can shoot down some of them!"  The _Maw_'s engines rumbled to life, as did the other ships'.  They watched as about half of the dropships broke off from the main group and headed towards the lunar guns.  The plasma-MAC guns of the fleet tore through a thousand-odd of them.  Salvos of Archer missiles brought down another 500, but it was not enough.  The rest continued on towards their designated targets.

          "They're going to take out our major defenses _and _one of our last shipyards, just like Reach…it CAN'T happen again!  Send in the Marines, pronto!  Break out the vacuum-sealed suits for Green team, James's Marines.  They'll protect the lunar base.  Tell the Master Chief to get here with the Marines on the _Aurora_.  That group will protect Mars with the Marines from the _Maw_.  They'll be Blue team.  Hurry!" the Admiral hurriedly rapped out orders through the COM channels.

          Inside the captured Covenant cruiser, the Chief departed with Cortana in his Longsword, heading for the _Maw_.  James handed out the vacuum-sealed suits.  The Marines put them on, checking weapons at the same time.

          "Oh man, this suit is even heavier than before!" grumbled one Marine.

          "Would you rather die of suffocation?" replied James calmly.  The Marines stopped complaining and each grabbed a MA5BP assault rifle and M6DP pistol.  Some hefted the M19P SSM rocket launcher.  James chose the M19P, his own customized MA5BP and a long glittering combat sword.  Everyone raided the crates of grenades and stuffed them in their suit pockets.  They grabbed extra clips and battery pack and stood to attention.  James briefed them on their mission.  Inside the shuttle bay, there were Pelicans everywhere.  Most of them had attached Warthogs that had their guns upgraded with the plasma charge.  There were also two Scorpion tanks, also with the plasma upgrade.  The Pelicans also had added shields.

          "Men, we've been assigned to protect the lunar base and guns.  Without those, our defensive capabilities will be severely impeded.  Those vacuum suits will protect you if those Covenant landers in destroy the artificial atmosphere.  We'll be outnumbered maybe 100 to 1, so we'll need to use our brains more than raw power.  Don't overestimate your suit's defensive capabilities, either.  Keep under cover whenever possible.  Only get damaged when there's no other choice. Well, are you all ready for this?"

          "Sir, yes sir!"

          Meanwhile, in the _Maw_, the Master Chief was addressing his group of Marines.  They were more numerous than James's group, since the Marines were from both the _Maw_ and _Aurora_.  The Chief's group did not have the vacuum suits, either.

          After he finished briefing them, they piled into their dropships.  The Chief sat with the commanding officers of the Marine squad.  They watched in silence as their dropship descended down towards Mars.  As they got closer, he could see Covenant dropships unloading huge groups of Elites.  The forward plasma-chain guns shredded many of them, sending bluish-purple blood flying everywhere.  More aliens piled out of the dropships.  The Pelicans, numbering 50 in all, searched for a safer LZ.  Four were shot down by the sheer amount of plasma fire from the Elites, Grunts, Jackals, and Covenant dropships.

          About four kilometers away, they found a relatively quiet spot, with about a hundred Grunts standing around.  Plasma-chain guns ripped them apart, and the Pelicans began dropping Warthogs, Scorpions and Marines.  The Chief climbed out along with the officers.  They had heavy weapons like snipers and shotguns.  Then he noticed a Warthog dropped from the dropship he had just exited from.  It had a strange gun mounted where the plasma-chain gun usually would be.

          "What is that?" he asked the pilot of the dropship, a Lieutenant.

          "That's a new experimental type of gun.  It's a mini-MAC gun.  It doesn't have the plasma upgrade, but still, it's very, very powerful.  Try it out!" he replied before lifting off.

          Suddenly, two giant plasma balls blew a Warthog apart.  A Marine standing on top of a hill ran back down as another bolt disintegrated the area where he just stood.  "Enemy has armor support!  We better get moving!" he panted through the COM system.  The 1,000 Marines scattered to avoid being hit.  They started climbed in Warthogs and Scorpions.  The Chief decided to test the mini-MAC gun.  He got in the gunner's seat while a Sergeant with a sniper rifle climbed in the passenger seat.  MC read the nametag on the Marine's uniform: Sgt. Andrews.  Private Johnson climbed into the drivers seat, and they sped off, over the scorched hill.

          The Chief saw the four Wraith mortar tanks first.  Taking careful aim, he fired the gun.  The recoil almost flung him off of the vehicle, but one of the Wraiths had become a smoking, useless wreck.  While his gun recharged, the Sergeant threw a grenade, straight into a Wraith's engine.  It exploded in a huge plume of smoke.

          "Two down, two to go!" yelled Johnson over the noise of the engine.  He turned to avoid a huge plasma shot.  By now, a Scorpion had rumbled over the hill, with four Marines sitting on it.  Its plasma-charged cannon destroyed another tank.  The one remaining Wraith fired at a bunch of Marines before being hit by the mini-MAC gun.  The Marines, despite their shields, were killed.  MC sized up his force: 15 Warthogs, 10 Scorpions, and many other Marines still on foot.  He had the more heavily armed Marines go on foot while the others would ride on vehicles to maximize their firepower.

          "All right, three Warthogs will go scout over that valley up ahead," the Chief pointed to a deep depression in the earth before continuing. "I will lead them.  The rest, hold positions but be wary.  I don't know what that huge group of Covenant we saw earlier is up to."  As he finished talking, the growls of Elites and the high-pitched squeal of Grunts could be heard.  A Marine holding binoculars pointed over to the right of the group.

          "Look at that!" he yelled.  Thousands of aliens were storming directly for them!

On the Moon…

          James and his group landed without any trouble.  Walking cautiously forward, they relied on COM systems to communicate.

          "Marines, hold position here.  I'll take a small group to investigate up ahead.  I think I saw a Covenant dropship landing there," the SPARTAN told his squad.  With three others, he crept silently over large craters to the spot.  He found nothing there.  As he was turning to go back, a voice broke through the COM channel.

          "Sir, we're under attack!  There's so many of them!  I think we found that group you were looking for!"

          He rushed back to the Marines.  Elites that also had vacuum-suits had surrounded them.  James snuck up behind a Commander who was about to skewer a Marine with a plasma sword and stabbed him in the back with his own sword, taking out its shields.  The alien turned to face him.  It brought down its sword with frightening speed.  However, the special composition of metals in James's sword allowed him to block the Commander's sword.  The confused Elite hesitated, giving the SPARTAN time to stab it.  It crumbled to the ground with a huge gash in its side.

          The other Elites turned to face him.  He pulled out his oversized MA5BP and fired.  The plasma-charged bullets took down two Elites before he had to reload.  The Marines opened fire, bringing down some more.  They ran out through the gap in the Elite circle to join James and his three scouts.  A sniper put holes in four Elite's suits.  They fell, writhing and screeching noiselessly in the vacuum before the airless environment claimed them.  A few Marines also threw grenades.  Due to the difference between the Moon's and a Earth-like planet's gravity, most missed, but two plunked down in the group of charging aliens.  They detonated, sending blood and body parts flying.  A rocket killed the rest.  James counted; he had lost seven Marines.  Since he only had a hundred under his command, it was pretty bad.

          As they rested after the furious fight, a thousand Grunts popped out from various craters and attacked.  The group leapt up, firing.  Fifty Grunts fell.  This caused the lower-ranking Minors to run around in fear.  They were screaming for the Elites to come help them, but upon seeing the bodies of their fallen Elite comrades, even the Majors resumed in a state of mass panic.  James and his group would have laughed, but this was war.  Grenades, rockets, sniper rounds and plasma slashed through the air.  Panicking and scattering did help the Grunts in a way, because they were not all in a big group any more.  This made heavy explosives like rockets less effective.  Even so, the once mighty Grunt army was now down to about 300.  They realized that running around in circles would not save their lives, so they regrouped and opened fire, some throwing grenades.

          "Ahhh!" a Marine ran around with a plasma grenade stuck to him.  He ran straight into the Grunt ranks, taking down a few with him.  The angry Marines blasted the Grunts to pieces.  James counted his group's losses.  Only 83 left.  He continued on to the lunar base, hoping it had not yet been overrun.

Back on Mars…

          The Chief ordered the Warthog and Scorpion drivers to run straight into the mass of aliens and to fire as they charged.  The massive Scorpion's 90mm plasma-charged rounds wreaked havoc.  Its secondary plasma-machine gun was firing constantly.  The speedy Warthogs had already reached the cluster of Covenant and squashed many of them flat on the ground.  The Scorpion's main guns were forced stop firing because of the risk of hitting their own.  Seven grenades landed on a tank.  The driver and passengers leapt out before the three-second fuses ran out, but the Scorpion was reduced to slag.  Plasma from both the Covenant and Marines was flying everywhere.  Shields flickered and went out.  Many of the Covenant were just smeared flat by the 66-ton Scorpions or 3.25 ton Warthogs.  Before long, it was over.  The Chief noted that he had lost 57 troops.  He continued on with the remaining Marines, hoping that the Covenant had not yet reached the main shipyard.

          Admiral Stanforth stood in bridge of the _Maw_, listening to the reports coming in grimly.

          "Green team advancing.  They had lost 17 men."

          "Blue team also advancing.  Lost 57 Marines."

          "Lunar base under heavy assault.  They can't hold out much longer!"

          "Mars shipyard sections E-G have been destroyed.  They're in a tight spot!"

          "Send the Pelicans back in.  They have get there in time!"


	7. The battle for humanity

Chapter 7-The battle for humanity

          The Pelicans arrived to the Chief's squad in five minutes.  Hurriedly, they climbed to the dropships and took a small rest before they arrived.  Vehicles were latched back onto the Pelicans and the troops took some ammo from the weapons lockers in the dropships.  

          Approaching the spaceyard, MC saw that parts of the structure were mangled and burning.  As his dropship neared the ground, he could see thousands of Grunt and Elite tracks in the red sand of Mars.  To one side of those tracks he could make out many more enormous footprints deep in the ground.  Those could only mean one thing:  

Hunters.

          The Chief saw explosions and plasma streaking through the air near the undamaged sections of the spaceyard.

          "Pilot, put us down over by that battle," he told the pilot.

          "Aye, aye, sir.  Should I tell the others?" the pilot, a Lieutenant, replied.

          MC nodded and the Lieutenant sent the message to the other Pelicans.  They all changed course and headed for the battle below.  He could see the Covenant pinning down a small group of security officers.  When they touched down just six meters away from the Covenant forces, 11 green, artillery-style bolts erupted from the middle of the crowd, disintegrating half a Pelican.

          The Chief knew where those shots had come from.  They were undoubtedly Hunter Fuel Rod guns.  The shields would help keep his troops alive a little longer, but he knew he had to take them out soon.  There was no time to get in vehicles, either; they were in immediate danger.  Fortunately, he knew all their weak spots from long experience, so he told the Marines about them.  Some of them already knew about this, but most had not encountered Hunters before.  They spread out to avoid the shots as the Covenant turned to face the bigger threat.  The security officers took cover and watched.

          They cut down the first few ranks of Grunts easily, but there was a wall of Elites guarding the Hunters.  Their Fuel Rod guns could fire over the smaller aliens' heads.  This method slowed the humans down considerably.  The solution was rather simple, however.  The Marines would throw grenades or shoot plasma rockets.  The Elites would either have to dodge, leaving the Hunters vulnerable, or get killed standing in the blast radius of the explosives.  Most of them rolled to one side instinctively.  A few unlucky ones were caught in the explosion, which also took out two Hunters.

          Angry at being tricked, the Elites charged, growling fiercely.  The Marines were ready.  The front line of Marines fired in unison.  The plasma-charged rounds were extremely effective against the shielded creatures and took many of them down in one go.  However, the Elites' charge proved to be a good diversion, although they had not meant it that way.  The Hunters charged their weapons and fired.  

          _Chief!  Look out!_ shouted Cortana, inside his head.  He rolled to one side just in time, watching the Hunter's shot blacken the area where he had stood a moment before.

          Many Marines were not so lucky.  They were caught in the green explosions.  Only a few survived, badly wounded.  They were helped by their comrades to the medics, who were standing out of range of the guns.

          The 30 snipers in the group took up good firing positions behind rocks or in craters.  The rest moved to cover them.  Once again, they scattered to avoid being vaporized by the destructive guns of the Hunters.  Sniper rounds whistled through the air.  Some bounced off the shields or armor of the gigantic aliens, but several found their mark.  Seven Hunters fell.  Another three were badly wounded and could not fight.  There were only about ten left.  A few heavy weapons officers popped up behind a large rock, wielding their rocket launchers.  The blasts were highly effective against the large creatures, who did not have the best of reflexes.

          There were still about 1000 Grunts left.  Seeing all their superiors killed, they did what they could do best in a battle: panic.  The Marines watched in amusement as the aliens swarmed around, all screaming.  Everyone who had their translators on started to laugh as they heard the high-pitched voice of the Grunts loud screaming out various phrases.

          "They're gonna kill us all!"

          "Leaders dead!  Run away!"

          "Mommy!"

          "AHHHH!"

          "Help!"

          "No more!"

          As the Grunts continued running around, the Marines tossed a few grenades into the moaning mass of frightened aliens.  That, and a few more shots from the weapons of the group, silenced the Grunts.

          After the smoke cleared and the wounded were treated, the Chief took stock of their losses.  About 650 Marines remained.  They had lost almost 300 alone in that fight.  Still, it was nothing compared to the Covenant losses.  An estimated 25 Hunters, 300 Elites, and a few thousand Grunts lay upon the ground.  Ignoring the carnage, he gathered up the security personnel they had saved.  There were only about 40 of them.  They all carried light protitanium body armor and M6DP pistols.  Most of them were badly hurt, so he sent them off to the medics.  He found the security leader, who carried a MA5BP that had an extra power pack and a shield in addition to his armor, which was similar to a Marine's.

          "What happened here?" asked the Chief.

          "Well, we were trying to prevent the Covenant from getting into the shipyard. At first, we were up at the perimeter of this complex, over there," he stopped to point at the edge of the burning buildings.  "We took down hundreds of the Grunts and quite a few Elites too, but then things got bad.  I used to have 300 men under my command, but those-those Hunter things you took down; they would vaporize 10 troops at once with one shot!  I thought we were done for until you showed up," the leader replied.

          The Chief watched more Covenant dropships dropping out of the sky a kilometer away.  "Well, we could use some extra help.  Do your men have vehicle training?  I mean, can they ride on one?" he asked.

          "Yes, they received a little training on that. Why?" answered the officer curiously.

          "They might have to ride on one if I lose too many troops.  I'll call for a dropship to bring some better weapons and armor for your men.  This is going to be a long, hard fight," MC said gravely.

Meanwhile, in the lunar base…

          James and his squad were relatively happy.  They had reached the lunar base and successfully defended it against the alien onslaught, helped by the numerous automated plasma-chain guns around the base.  After a few waves of attack, the Covenant dropships that still had troops changed direction, seemingly retreating.  James wasn't surprised when he found out they were actually heading towards Mars.  His squad listened grimly to the static-filled reports on Blue team, the Chief's squad.

          "Lost sections E-G…Covenant forces…approaching…need assis…too many…more drop…coming…need help…can't hold out…longer."

          After this depressing message, James contacted the _Maw_.

          "Admiral Stanforth, sir, I am requesting that my team and I land on Mars and help Blue team," he said into the COM channel.

          "All right, James.  Be careful.  The _Maw_'s scanners are picking up over 24,000 non-human lifeforms on Mars.  Do anything you can to save that shipyard.  If it falls…so does Earth, humanity…everything we worked so hard to accomplish would be destroyed.  Good luck.  Stanforth out," the Admiral said before returned to other matters.  All he could do in the _Maw_ was shoot down some dropships before the got too close to Mars.

          James and his team readied for the fight.  None of them had the standard issue MA5BPs or M6DPs.  They all took weapons that could hit multiple targets.  Most had rocket launchers in anticipation of huge crowds of aliens.  Some also had shotguns and sniper rifles.  The SPARTAN's modified MA5BP had an added grenade launcher, a computerized scope that would help to angle the launcher to hit his targets, and a large battery pack that would make the rounds even more deadly.  They opened a few cratefuls of grenades and took six each.  James took twenty and loaded them into his launcher.  This preparation didn't take long and they were all armed within three minutes.

          The veteran team put on armor and powered up shields at the charging station before boarding their Pelicans.  The dropships' jets roared to life when all had climbed on.  One by one, their hatches closed and they shot off towards the red planet.

          James could see minute explosions on the surface, close to the huge shipyard.  The pilot did, too, and headed towards the battle, just like MC had done a few hours earlier.  Only this time, there would be thousands more enemies.

          The Chief and his squad were fighting furiously.  Plasma flew thick and fast through the air.  Grenades hurtled from both sides.  The humans, however, had the advantage of cover.  They put up some barricades and portable protitanium walls that had small niches to shoot through.  MC had also had the soldiers set up stationary energy shields for even more cover.  This way, losses were minimal, but their enemies just kept coming.  More of the purple dropships were coming by the second.

          The Chief was, despite all his experience, beginning to think this was a battle he could not win.  With his 600 remaining soldiers outnumbered almost 50 to one, he felt that the battle for the shipyard, and humanity, had been lost.  Still, he fought on.

          Suddenly, he saw several gray Covenant dropships descending towards him.  He took a second look, squinting at the objects, which was still high in the air.  They weren't Covenant dropships; they were Pelicans!  The Chief heard a familiar voice over the COM system in his helmet.

          "Hey, boys!  Looks like we made it in time for some action!"  It was James and his team!

          "Wait a minute.  If they're here, then-" the Chief was cut off as Cortana finished his sentence.

          _The lunar base is safe.  I was listening on the COM channels and I heard that the Covenant retreated from there to land here._

          James and his Marines joined in the battle.  The 27 Warthogs were running over ranks of Grunts and Elites.  The Scorpions were on a high hill, plasma-shelling the Covenant.  Their plasma-machine guns were highly useful also.

          "Scanners are picking up at least 28,000 Covenant.  Things won't be good down there.  I've just radioed the _Maw_ and _Aurora_.  I asked for any reinforcements they could spare.  They said they're sending down fifteen SkyHawks," the COM officer at the Mars shipyard said to the Marines and SPARTANs.  The soldiers were too busy to answer, but they were relieved that they would get at least a little help.

          Six Ghosts cornered a group of Marines.  Their shields were falling rapidly when a plasma-charged rocket ripped through two of them and a grenade took down another.  The Marines opened fire, taking down the last three.  Two of the Ghosts were still in operating condition; only the drivers had been killed.  Two Marines commandeered the vehicles and went back to fighting.

          A few minutes later, the SkyHawks arrived.  The 539 remaining Marines cheered before going back to the battle.

          The quad-50mm plasma-chain guns and twin plasma-charged Scorpion anti-tank missile pods of the fighters were devastating.  The Covenant had already lost one-fifth, or 6,000, of their troops.  Despite this, Marines could be killed almost instantly if they were out in the open, due to the huge salvoes of plasma from the Elites, Grunts and Jackals.  The final 300 Covenant dropships to land carried Hunters.  There were about 1000 Hunters.  The SkyHawks concentrated their fire on those aliens.  The added heavy shields and a quarter of a meter of protitanium protected the jump jet fighters well.  About 50 of the fearsome creatures were felled in the first pass.  But there were only fifteen of the fighters, and the Covenant still had many more soldiers than the humans.

          _Can we hold them off?_ wondered the Chief.  Cortana gave an estimation for him.

          _My analysis indicates that the chances of holding them off are a 31% chance_, she replied.  _Unless we get more reinforcements._

          31%.  To a normal person, that would seem bad.  But the Marines and SPARTANs had seen far worse percentages.  Once Cortana had even predicted a 3% chance of winning one battle the Chief had been in.  Despite this depressing number, the humans won in that battle, because of some quick thinking on MC's part.

          Still, there was a 69% chance they could lose.  Then humanity would almost certainly fall.  Many of the Marines were feeling hollow as the battle raged on.

          Would humanity fall?


	8. The last chance

Chapter 8-The last chance

          The SkyHawks screamed by overhead the Chief, who had gotten into his personal Warthog with the mini-MAC gun.  The plasma-chain guns of the jets mowed down a few more lines of the advancing Covenant.  MC saw plumes of black smoke and blue light flash from the wing of the lead SkyHawk.  A second later, there was a huge crater in the ground, caused by the plasma-charged Scorpion missile.  The Covenant shot at the fighters.  Some threw grenades, but the armor and shields were too heavy.  Small arms could not destroy it.  A Wraith threw a bolt of plasma into the air towards them, but the shot was not fast enough. The Skyhawks quickly made a maximum-g turn to get a clear view of their target.

          As the Skyhawks turned for another shot at the Covenant infantry, 20 small dots appeared on the horizon. As the dots became larger, the familiar whine of Banshee engines could be heard. The Banshees spotted the Skyhawks, and continued to increase speed as they came closer and closer.

           Within seconds, their plasma weapons lashed out, grazing the lead Skyhawk as the formation turned to face the new threat. The Skyhawk's shield flared for a moment, then cooled. The lead Skyhawk opened fire with its 50mm plasma-chain guns, shredding the hatch of a banshee, leaving the pilot exposed. The Skyhawk continued firing at the damaged banshee, and it erupted in a ball of flame, the wreckage spiraling to the ground. The Banshees retaliated with fuel-rod guns. The green plasma streaked toward four of the Skyhawks. The first few shots impacted their shields, each shield shimmering yellow when plasma hit. Several more fuel-rod shots streaked toward the Skyhawks, overwhelming their shields. The four Skyhawks dove down to the ground to avoid being shot down in their current state, but they had forgot about the ground forces. Ten Spec Ops Grunts hurled grenades into the air, straight at the jump jet fighters. Most missed, but some stuck onto the wings of the Skyhawks, reducing their agility and turning ability. The Banshees sped after the damaged fighters, spewing a huge stream of plasma. Their already severely damaged armor was melted away and the Skyhawks detonated as their ordnance exploded. 

          The remaining 11 Skyhawks fired as many Scorpion missiles as they could before the jump jets were forced to veer away as they got too close to the enemy Banshees. There were so many blue streaks in the air that the Chief could not even count them. The plasma-charged missiles chased their target, and the fifty enormous explosions sent a shockwave through the air, knocking the Marines and most of the Covenant to the ground. The shockwave also ripped through the Banshees, tearing them to metal fragments.

          The Covenant were quite shocked at the defeat of their Banshees, but they regrouped and charged en masse. James saw that they charged in a delta formation to protect themselves. Jackals and Hunters stood in front, using their shields to protect the forces behind them. Elites followed them, as they were relatively strong and had shielding. Grunts trailed behind by the thousand, having no advantage except sheer numbers. James saw something behind the formation, so he pulled out his binoculars to get a clearer view. All the way behind the Grunts, there were 15 hunters and about 30 Jackals standing in a circle, surrounding…something. James adjusted his binoculars for a better view. It looked like a purple-armored Elite, but it was about four inches taller than a regular Elite, and had twin fuel rod guns, similar to the ones Spec Ops Grunts carried, on its shoulders.  The circle of Covenant closed in, and the Elite disappeared from James's view.

          As the Covenant charged, the Marines all reloaded their weapons and prepared for the worst. They would shoot through small niches in their barricades, portable walls and energy shields before their cover would be melted away by the sheer amount of plasma the 25,000 remaining Covenant would be firing.  Then they would just stand and fight.  The Chief strapped himself in into the gunner's seat of his personal Warthog and ordered Private Johnson to face the Warthog straight into the charging Covenant to provide extra cover. A low rumbling became louder and louder as they came closer. The Scorpion tanks rumbled into position and the Warthogs turned to face the enemy. As Hunters and Jackals appeared, Sergeant Andrews and several other snipers fired, but most of the rounds bounced off the shields. The snipers continued a steady stream of fire, and sometimes a Hunter or a Jackal would expose its weak spots, allowing the snipers to kill them. For every Covenant they killed, however, ten more would take the place of the one that had died. 

          The Scorpion tanks fired 18 rounds into the center of the charging Covenant. The Hunters raised their shields, but over 40 of them were killed as the plasma-charged rounds impacted in their tightly packed ranks. Orange blood flew in the air, landing on the humans and coating the ground. Jackals charged their weapons, and Hunters began to shoot their guns.  A few barricades were destroyed in this first volley, but the stronger protitanium walls and energy shields held up.  The Marines were mostly armed with heavy weapons, so they returned fire.  Rockets, plasma and grenades hit in the front group of Jackals.  They all fell, with the plasma-charged ordnance ripping through their shields like an ax through butter.  The rest scattered and returned fire.  Their plasma pistols peppered the area with shots, and several Marines who had their cover blown away fell.

          The Chief fired his Warthog's mini-MAC gun.  It took out two Ghosts.  The Covenant were finished deploying troops, and now they were landing vehicles and stationary guns for the Grunts.  All these numbered 500 in all, with 200 Ghosts, 75 Wraiths and 225 stationary guns.  Marines would have to hijack these whenever possible.  About 30 more Banshees screamed by overhead.  The Covenant knew that they could not destroy all of the Skyhawks, but at least they could distract the fighters from attacking their ground forces.  Another fierce air battle ensued, and some Grunts, Jackals and Marines actually stopped fighting to watch as explosions rocked the air and wreckage spiraled down, sometimes landing in the packed ranks of Covenant.  The Elites, Hunters, SPARTANs, and veteran Marines, however, continued fighting.

          Suddenly, by a stroke of luck, a Scorpion misfired, hitting a dropship carrying two Wraiths.  An ordinary shot wouldn't have penetrated the shield, but the plasma-charged shot did.  The crippled dropship spun around before it crashed into a group of Marines, killing them.  The pilot was dead, but the Wraiths were relatively intact.  James, in need of heavier firepower, jumped into one.  Displays popped up around him when he sat down in a seat that was meant for an Elite.  He had experience before using Covenant vehicles, so it wasn't too difficult.  Because the large vehicle was slow and hovered a few feet off the ground, he could not run over any Covenant.  Anyway, there were too many of them and he would probably be overwhelmed in seconds.  The mortar shot was perfect for shooting while staying under cover.

          A large group of 30 Hunters broke off from the main charge, stopping to fire as fast as their guns would recharge.  The green shots blew away several small squads of Marines.  They continued keeping up a steady stream of fire, being careful not to expose their weak spots.  This caused numerous casualties in the human defenders, and the lucky ones that would actually survive this murderous barrage had to be taken to the infirmary because of their serious wounds.

          The Hunters could not be stopped.  They would not expose their weak spots and they were so far away any heavy weapon fired at them, such as a rocket, would be useless.  James's Wraith shots were also much too slow, and even the clumsy Hunters dodged them, so he resumed firing at the Elites and Jackals, who were too busy fighting.  The Scorpions were also busy hitting Covenant vehicles, and all the Warthogs were too far away.

          Except for one.

          The Chief saw the unstoppable crowd of Hunters and ordered Private Johnson to head toward them at full speed.

          "Hurry up, Private!  Those Hunters will just blast our forces to pieces if you don't step on it!" he yelled.

          "Sir, right away, sir!" the Marine stomped on the accelerator and headed towards the aliens, who had their backs turned to them.

          Sergeant Andrews fired his sniper rifle, felling a few of the massive creatures.  As they turned to face the new threat, MC fired his gun straight at them, killing five more.  Andrews kept up a steady stream of fire, emptying three clips shooting at the Hunters.  Johnson was making erratic turns with the Warthog to avoid being toasted by the Fuel Rod shots.

          "This is Warthog 13B, we have turned the Hunters' backs to you, defense team.  Fire at will," Andrews said through his helmet COM system.  The Marines back at the shipyard entrance started sending rockets and grenades at the Hunters.  One rocket missed a Hunter and whizzed by, missing the Chief's back by a hair.

          "Watch your fire, Marines!" he said angrily into the COM channel.

          The Hunters were now being hit hard on two sides.  Several of them were hit by a mini-MAC round and they dropped to the ground, groaning in pain. Several Hunters managed to surround James's Wraith and started to bombard it. A pillar of flame rose from the tank, and the ruthless Hunters smashed its armor, damaging it further. The Wraith was no longer hovering, and the whole thing erupted into flame. 

          "Turn to the left, now!" The Chief ordered Johnson. The Warthog turned and sped toward the Wraith. Two Grunts stood in the way, firing their plasma pistols, but they were smashed out of the way by the speeding Warthog. 

          _I'll call a medic. It's a long shot, but we might be able to get there in time. _Cortana said calmly.

          As the Wraith became larger while the Chief approached it in his Warthog, two Ghosts manned by Elites moved into his way. Four bolts of plasma tore through the air, and the temperature increased dramatically. The plasma hit the engine armor plate, and it boiled away. The Chief brought his MAC gun to bear on the Ghosts when the Warthog swerved to avoid a plasma bolt, and his shot completely missed the Ghost, streaking into the sky. Sergeant Andrews raised his sniper, and carefully sniped an Elite out of one of the Ghosts. However, the other Ghost refused to move out of the way of the incoming Warthog. The Chief would have ordered the Warthog to simply push the Ghost out of the way, but he would not take any chances, especially with an engine that had no armor. 

          The MAC gun read 70% charge, but the Chief didn't need a full charge to destroy a Ghost. He fired the gun, and this time the shot tore a hole from one side of the Ghost to the other, also penetrating the driver. The Warthog stopped at the flaming Wraith, and the Chief jumped out of the gunner's seat and dashed to the tank. Master Chief tore off the hatch with his superhuman strength, and grabbed James's limp body from the tank. The Chief didn't know whether how injured James was, so he put him in the Warthog. He needed to get him to a medic, quickly. He asked Cortana for help. "Can you get us a dropship to bring James to a medic?"

          _Negative. This area is not deemed safe for a dropship. The shipyard is 3 kilometers south. We might be able to find a good medic in the infirmary. Oh, and the Maw is sending its remaining 5 Skyhawks to escort us to there. I'm putting a nav point on your HUD. You can direct the driver that way._ Cortana replied.

          The Chief pointed the directions to the Private, and he strapped himself back into the gunner's seat. James could be dead already, or just unconscious. The Marines were fighting the best they could, but the Covenant still outnumbered the Marines drastically. To the Chief, it was going to be a long ride back to the base. 

          While the Chief headed to the base, a battle was still raging. A group of Marines had run out of rockets, so the switched to their assault rifles. Most had taken cover behind anything possible: pieces of the wall, barricades, protitanium walls, and shields. Three Warthogs charged a large group of Grunts and Elites, their plasma-chain guns slicing through the Elite shields and Grunt armor. Any remaining troops were killed when the Warthogs slammed into the group. The shipyard area was covered in blood, mostly Grunt, but there was also blood from all species in random areas. 

          The snipers had taken cover in the nearby hills. Every several seconds a plasma-coated round would penetrate a Jackal or an Elite, forcing the Covenant to find seek cover for the sake of their lives. The humans had not given up yet, even though the odds were bad.  Sometimes the Covenant would be lined up.  If a sniper fired at the lead alien, the round would tear through several of them.

          "Get your asses down here!  May I remind you that we're protecting the shipyard, not some damn hill!" a Sergeant yelled at them through the COM channel.

          "But Sarge, we are defending the shipyard, and besides, we can't snipe 

from-" the lead sniper's reply was cut off by his superior officer.

          "But nothin'!  You can snipe from the main control tower!  Now move!"

          The Marines found that they were running out of ammo.  They fought on while the Chief listened to their reports.

          "We're low on ammo!  Chief, can you make a call up the _Maw_ or _Aurora_?  Ask them to send down extra ammo and grenades!  Also, if they can spare anything else, like vehicles just lying around, send them!  We're being hit hard here!" a Lieutenant yelled through the COM channel.  Screams and plasma blasts could be heard in the background.

          The Chief used the Warthog's high-power COM system to contact the two cruisers.  He received a reply almost immediately.

          "Chief, we're sending down 20 Pelicans with ammo onboard.  Nine of them are also carrying Scorpions and Marines from the destroyer _Renown_.  ETA is ten minutes.  The five SkyHawks that escorted you will also help fight, after making sure the dropships arrive safely," Admiral Stanforth's voice could barely be heard over the roar of the Warthog's engine.

          The drive to the shipyard was uneventful.  As soon as he arrived, the Chief took James, still inside his armor suit, and ran towards the infirmary, which was surprisingly empty.  A few Marines that had Fuel Rod blast wounds were in there.  Soldiers with regular plasma injures could be treated by the 20 field medics.  MC laid James's body on a bed.  He explained the situation to a nurse before rushing back out to his Warthog and promptly continued battle again.

          The newly arrived supplies and troops helped a little.  The humans managed to stave off the relentless Covenant charges, but they were far too numerous.  Eventually, they would win if no one came up with a plan.

          Nighttime brought a small lull in the fighting.  MC's exhausted troops took turns resting.  The snipers, however, continued firing. They had night vision scopes and would pick off any Covenant that got in range.  Empty shell casings were strewn all over the tower most of them were in.  Cratefuls of ammo packs were beside them.  The Covenant soon realized that they would have to retreat a fair distance before they were out of the range of the deadly plasma-charged rounds.

          Since the fighting had slackened off, the medics brought in some food for the tired soldiers.  They ate, talked and rested, always watching the Covenant in case they tried another charge.  The Chief walked into the infirmary to check on James.

          The SPARTAN had received injures that would have killed any ordinary soldier.  The MJOLNIR suit and the augmentations he had received, as a member of the SPARTAN-II project, was what saved him.  He lay sleeping, covered in burns and scorched skin.

          "Will he make it?" MC anxiously asked the doctor that had treated his friend.

          "Yes, there's an 80% chance he will make it.  He's lucky that the Hunters didn't bash up that Wraith a little more, because it would have collapsed on him totally.  Even for a SPARTAN, that would be fatal.  It will take several weeks before he's ready to fight again, though," the doctor replied.

          The Chief was relieved and dismayed at the same time.  He had already lost all his other teammates on Reach, and the fact that James probably would make it was reassuring. On the other hand, having a SPARTAN out of action for weeks was like having an entire squad of Marines out of the fight.

          _The reinforcements from the _Renown_ should cover him, though,_ the Chief thought.  He was actually not so sure.

***

          The next morning, everyone readied for another Covenant assault.  The Marines had been keeping watch in shifts.  The snipers had been doing this also, scanning the darkened terrain with their scopes.  It was a quiet night, however.  The Chief figured that the Covenant were planning for a big attack in the morning, so Marines climbed into vehicles and loaded up their weapons.  All of them were tense, waiting for the attack.

          It never came.

          "What the hell are those Covenant up to?" a Sergeant asked MC after two hours of waiting.

          _Scanners show that Covenant movement in their camp is very low.  They appear to be sleeping or resting.  Only a few Elites are patrolling._ Cortana told the Chief.  He relayed the message to the Marines.

          _Now it's time to do some attacking of our own,_ thought the Master Chief.  He outlined his plan with the officers.

          "All right men, this is our last chance.  If this attack fails, we'll be overrun.  Now, as you've probably heard, the Covenant appear to be resting.  Our mission is to take out as many of them as we can before being detected.  If we manage to take about, oh, 10,000 of them, we might actually stand a chance.  But it won't be easy.  Not by a long shot.  This will require a lot of stealth, skill, and of course, luck.  Now here's the plan.  I will pick a group of veteran Marines to do the initial attack.  We will use the "active camouflage" technology we have found and replicated on the Covenant cruiser I captured. We only have 100 of them, so I need the best troops to use them.  There is also an "over shield" technology we will be using.  Again, there are only 100.  That much explained, here's what we do.  I'll sneak in behind the camp, where the least Elites that Cortana mentioned as patrolling are.  To kill them silently, I'll hit them in their backs.  Once those have been eliminated, the Marines and I will plant a few caches of C-12 all around their camp.  Then we'll creep off, whacking any Elite we see.  The suit you Marines wear gives you extra strength and reflexes much better than your old one.  It's not as effective as mine, but it'll give you enough power to crack an Elite's spine.  I suppose you're all wondering, 'what will the other Marines be doing?'  Most of them will be close by, under cover, just in case we need backup.  About 200 of them will stay here to guard.  The most important thing in this mission is to be as quiet as possible.  We need to go now, before they wake up.  Good luck," the Chief moved off to pick his squad while the officers readied their own troops.  It was a thin thread of hope that they would complete it successfully, but at least it was something.  They tensely waited to carry out the most dangerous mission any of the Marines had ever been in.


	9. Winning isn't everything

Well, I'm back with Chapter Nine. Review! I'll do my best to finish Chapter Ten soon. 

Chapter 9-Winning is not everything

          "-bring only an assault rifle and a pistol if you have been chosen to be with my team. Your suit is only for **augmenting your strength, so don't overestimate its capabilities. That could mean the death of you. All other teams will stay at the base, in case the Covenant try something strange. Heavy weapons team Alpha will cover us and help if something goes wrong. If we don't come back, do NOT try to send more troops. We are already short on men as it is, and any heroic effort will make the problem worse. I repeat, NO heroics. We're here to take back this planet, not to win medals." The Chief finished his speech, and headed off the briefing platform to converse with several officers.**

          "Do you think this crazy plan will work?" a Marine nervously asked several of his friends. Most of them doubted that they would pull it off.

          "I think the Chief has gone insane!" Another Marine commented.

          "You all shut up! I don't want to hear any of you whining like this. Now do something useful, or all of you with be assigned to night patrol!" The Sergeant finished venting his anger at the Marines and walked off, mumbling something about bad discipline in the corps.

          The Chief was checking his weaponry and armor integrity when Cortana spoke. _Maybe you should check up on James. By the way, you might want to inspect you team before you start. There are many people that a skeptical about this. Taking Cortana's advice, he headed off to the medical bay. _

          James was still in a bed, and there was an IV line in his arm. Most of his body was covered with burns from the earlier fight with the Hunters. His MJONIR armor was hanging in the air, and several technicians moved about, inspecting sections of armor and repairing wires. 

          "There is a chance to win this fight, and I am going to conduct a stealth mission to wipe the Covenant clean off this planet. It's risky, so I don't want you to come. If you try to help in your condition, you will only slow us down. I might not be coming back from this, and the UNSC needs every SPARTAN they have." The Chief meant every word he said.

          James struggled to sit up and salute in his weakened state. "Good luck," With those words, he collapsed into the bed, breathing heavily.

          The Chief patted his friend on the shoulder and said, "Don't overdo it. Get some rest now."

          James said one last thing before MC left the room. "Go…and kick their alien asses." Soon after, he fell asleep and the Chief went off to finish preparations for the mission.

          The Chief headed out of the medical bay to check up on his team. They were all sitting in the armory, choosing their weapons. Four large ODSTs walked up, shoving him hard in the face.

          "This is suicide. We've been fighting the Covenant for 10 years now, and we know there is no way that 100 troops will beat an army Covenant. Yes, they are sleeping, but the slightest error could doom the human race." one of the ODSTs said.

          "Stand down, or I will have you court marshaled if you do not stop this nonsense." The Chief replied.

          "Oh yeah, and you're going to stop us, meat. Get him!" the four ODSTs lunged at the Chief, three holding him down and one grabbing his throat. Fifteen other Marines also took the chance to beat him up and held him down. The Chief was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of Marines, and he didn't have his armor on, which made things worse. A very angry Marine charged the helpless Chief using an assault rifle as a ram, knocking the air out of the Chief. He was beginning to pass out from the lack of oxygen when a Lieutenant entered the armory.

          "Stop! This man has earned the right to some courtesy, even from you barbarians. After this, you're lucky that you get expelled from the corps, because you will be court marshaled if you don't." The Lieutenant ordered. The Marines backed off, some still giving glares at the Chief. They returned to choosing their weapons and checking their battle suits. The Chief headed for a small room next to the armory, where his MJONIR armor was being stored. The armor was being modified to generate an active camouflage field, to supercharge the shield for a short amount of time, and to increase general shield resilience. The last technicians finished the modifications on the suit, and walked away. He headed up to the armor to notice that there were not the scars of battle on the suit anymore. The techs also had repaired it.

          The Chief closed the door of the room and put the armor on. He grabbed Cortana's memory cube out of the base's computer and put her into the AI slot in the back of his brain. He then put the suit on, piece by piece. When he finished, he headed out of the room to the armory. The Marines outside were still quite furious at the Chief, but did not say anything. He picked up an assault rifle and a pistol off of a rack of weapons hanging on the wall. He also loaded up on grenades from a crate, just as back up in case the C-12 failed. Finally, in a corner, sat 1,100 pounds of C-12. Twenty grams of that stuff could make Swiss cheese out of a meter of Titanium-A battleplate. 1,100 pounds could easily turn a city into a smoldering crater. Each Marine would carry ten pounds of it on their backs. Thankfully, it would not ignite without an activation signal from a remote transmitter. The Chief held the remote that could activate all the C-12, as he was the group leader. 

          Taking a quick glance at his suit's countdown timer, he suddenly realized that there was only ten more minutes before the operation began. Those ten minutes were reserved for driving to the Covenant base, so they had to leave immediately, or the Covenant would wake up, producing several problems.

          "Lets move, troops!" The Chief ordered. The Marines each picked up ten pounds of C-12 and headed for the vehicle bay. The Chief picked up his C-12 with his remote detonator from the weapons pile. He then walked out of the armory, heading toward the vehicle bay. 

          The vehicle bay had 32 Warthogs modified for stealth travel. Each one had the engine covered in layers of soundproof insulation to dampen the loud noise. The headlights had also been removed. They had been replaced with infrared sensors, which projected the view onto the windshield. The Chief's Warthog even had an active camouflage device, although it consumed a lot of power.  He climbed in and found Private Johnson and Sergeant Andrews inside.

          All around him, Marines were climbing into their Warthogs and starting their engines.  They would use the Warthogs to go around the Covenant camp and park a few meters away from the patrolling Elites there.  They would get out and silently kill those Elites.  Everyone had silenced weapons to take down the Covenant that were awake.

          The Warthogs drove off almost silently, with only the soft sound of the tires crunching on the ground and the muffled engine being heard by the main group of Marines that were on guard in the base.

          The group of Warthogs split up when they saw the base.  Half of them went around the left while the others went on the right.  They met in the back.  Silently, they got out of their vehicles and the five snipers in the group hefted out their rifles and took up positions.  The coughs of five silenced weapons were barely heard by the Elites and the ones who did were dead before they could determine the source of the noise.  A few more shots and all the patrolling Elites in site were dead.  The Chief passed the order to power up the active camouflage devices.  The dark shadows that were the Marines disappeared.  If they were in daylight, an Elite could see the blurry area that was the squad if they got close enough, but in the dark, it was impossible.

          The Marines crept up to the slumbering camp, followed by the Chief, who carried 100 pounds of explosives.  A few spiked their packs of C-12 into the ground where they entered, but most waited until they got farther into the mass of sleeping aliens to plant their explosives.  When all the packs were planted, they quietly backtracked to their vehicles. As they exited the camp, a Marine sniper spotted two more Elites that were awake and walking right towards them!  Hurriedly he whispered the news through the COM system.  The Chief walked up behind the aliens and with a quick movement snapped both of their spines.  The Elites crumpled to the ground soundlessly.  The Chief joined his waiting squad and they walked back into their Warthogs.

          Back at the camp, the Marines on watch looked anxiously into the night for a sign of the Chief or his stealth team.  In the tall sniper tower, a sniper used his night vision scope to look out for the squad.  After a while they began to worry.  Some were thinking that the mission had failed.  Officers tried to reassure their troops but most of them were actually thinking the same thing.

          "I see something!  It's the Warthogs!" yelled a sniper through the COM channel.  The troops cheered.  When all of them were safely inside the base, the Chief pressed the detonation button.

          Suddenly, the night became day with a huge flare of light from the Covenant base. A flaming ball rose into the air, taking with it debris and Covenant bodies. The roar of the explosion could be heard for miles as a wave of heat washed over the human defenders. The Chief looked though his binoculars at the former Covenant camp. Nothing remained at all: no vehicles, no troops, and no dropships. The Chief knew that a nuke instead would irradiate the area, making it absolutely useless. The C-12 eliminated the Covenant just as well as a nuke, without any side effects. He continued to ponder the outcome of the mission when a Marine sniper spotted something. 

          "Sir, there are Covenant about 2 kilometers to the left of the original camp! They are about 2,000 of them and they are awake! I see some kind of elite, only that it is purple, not the usual Elite colors. It also carries some sort of fuel rod, but I can't really tell what. However, the Covenant aren't heading toward us, just yet." the Marine reported to the Chief.

          "Good job, soldier," The Chief commented. "Its time to bring the Elite" he said to no one in particular. After voicing his thoughts out loud, he ordered the Marine to take a picture of the Elite and he quickly opened a COM link to Admiral Stanforth.

           "Sir, I request that you send the captured Elite to the Mars shipyards. I have found a new type of Covenant Elite and I am trying to find out what it is." The Chief requested.

          "Right away, son. Just make sure that it doesn't escape. The scientists are sort of insane about that. Stanforth out." The COM link shut off as the Admiral finished replying to the Chief. 

          Almost immediately, a dropship appeared in the sky. The dropship quickly descended, then swiveled its jets as it landed softly on a temporary platform. Five marines came out, carefully observing the area. The Elite came out, closely followed by two marines carrying high-velocity assault rifles mounted with grenade launchers. The Elite was bound with the plasma chains the Chief had used on it, and additionally bound with protitanium chains. The marines shoved and pushed the Elite into the briefing room and shut the door. 

          _I'll set up a translation program for it, in case it doesn't understand English. Also, I'm transmitting the picture from the marine's database to yours and the main computer's. From what battle reports indicate, Elite lives are valued in Covenant society, so a threat of danger should get it talking. Be wary, though, that the Elite may attack you. Cortana mentioned to the Chief. He walked to the briefing room, stepped inside, and took Cortana's memory cube out of his brain. Depositing the small cube in the base's computer interface, he headed on to the briefing stage. Two Marines walked up onto the stage and set a holographic projector in the center. The Elite sat in a metal chair, bound up by four protitanium chains._

          "Wow, this is the first time I have had a body in a long time." Cortana's holograpic form appeared over the projector. She walked around the room before sitting on the edge of the stage. One of the few scientists at the base walked up to the Elite. 

          The scientist pressed a remote control and a picture appeared on the main viewscreen on the stage. It was the picture of the purple Elite the Chief had ordered taken earlier. The scientist left the room, allowing the Chief to interrogate the Elite. The Chief walked up to the Elite, then pointed to Cortana to start the transmission program. "What is this?" the Chief asked. Cortana closed her eyes for a moment, then repeated what the Chief had asked in the Elite's language. 

          "Why should I tell you, human?" the Elite replied in perfect English.

          "You will die, and you will be sent to join your fellow warriors in hell!" the Chief yelled.

          "You are the one who will die." The Elite strained against the bindings that held it down.

          Quickly, the Chief pulled out his pistol out of its holster. He fired it about a centimeter above the Elite's head. The alien ducked, but it looked angry. The Chief yelled in the Elite's face, "I know that the Covenant value your life. So, tell me, or else your society will lose a warrior." 

          "He is the Grand Priest. He has the power of the Prophets. The Grand Priest will soon free me." The Elite said unwillingly.

          "Take him away. He has no other information," The Chief pointed to the Marines. "Cortana, record this information. It may be valuable." 

          The Chief strode toward the base's computer interface and withdrew Cortana's memory cube. He inserted it into the base of his brain. Quickly, Cortana's liquid presence filled his mind again.

          _This Grand Priest is interesting. I'm going to use some of your brain's cycles to try and compare it to existing types of Elites. Cortana's presence in his mind disappeared as she finished speaking. The Chief headed out to one of the scout posts to check on the current status of the battle._

          "Marine, what are the Covenant doing?" the Chief inquired.

          "Sir, they are currently readying their forces. I count about twelve Wraith tanks and twenty Ghosts. No banshees, though. The current amount of infantry is hard to tell, but most of them seem to be Hunters. That Elite you saw earlier is moving about, and he is surrounded by ten Hunters that have their backs completely covered in armor." the Marine reported.

          "What about our forces?" the Chief asked.

          "We have mobilized all Marine troops. Twenty Scorpions are at your disposal. There are 41 Warthogs usable, including the ones from the stealth mission. Snipers are ready to fire, on your order. We have three advance strike Warthogs are engaging Covenant forces now. Sir, your personal Warthog is ready, and fully restocked with MAC rounds. The scientists have been able to extend the acceleration coil on the cannon, so the rounds go farther and have higher velocity. Also, the shots are charged with plasma, like the MAC guns mounted on ships.  However, there is now a fusion reactor under the gunner's seat, so it might be a different configuration for the gun. You'll get used to it." The Marine returned to watching the Covenant.

          "Order the snipers to fire three rounds each at any targets they want. Have the Scorpions get ready to fire. They should fire at those Hunters guarding the Grand Priest.  Don't hit the Priest itself, though. Whatever you do, don't kill it.  Finally, have those advance strike Warthogs return," the Chief said to the Marine.  He relayed the message to his superior officers and they sent out the orders.

          The attacking Warthogs retreated and the snipers started firing.  A few Hunters and Elites fell.  The Scorpions coordinated their fire against the guard Hunters.  They spilt into two groups and fired one group at a time.  This method kept up a continuous stream of fire.  Some shots missed and hit the other aliens but the majority did.  The guard Hunters were incredibly strong and resilient, but the non-stop fire soon dropped a few of them.  More filed in to take their places.  The Scorpions kept up their fire.  The Covenant forces, undaunted by the murderous barrage, regrouped and charged.  The Marines and Warthogs were ready.  Fire lanced out from them and many aliens died in the first salvo.  The returning fire was just as heavy, however.  Plasma bolts flew thick in the air at the Marines.  

          This time, however, it was the humans who had superior numbers. For every Grunt, Hunter, Elite, or Jackal, there were five humans. In just a few minutes, the Covenant group was lying dead or dying on the ground because of the tank fire. The Grand Priest and his had retreated out of the range of the tanks, and the snipers were preparing to fire when the Chief held up his hand.

          "Stop. Those Hunters can withstand a plasma-high-velocity round. I'll take my Warthog out to stop them. Besides, Cortana wants to see the Grand Priest." the Chief told the Marines. He ordered Andrews and Johnson to prepare the Warthog while he finished preparing his weapons.  As soon as they were ready, Johnson slowly eased the Warthog out of the vehicle bay and drove off.  The guard Hunters held their positions as the vehicle approached at high speed.  They already had their special, more powerful Fuel Rod Guns charged and fired when the Warthog got in range.

          Johnson swerved to avoid being hit. The Chief swung his gun around, and fired it directly at a Hunter's shield. A supercharged round tore through the shield and knocked the Hunter to the ground, dead. The few remaining Hunters had surrounded the Warthog with their enormous bodies. A fuel rod bolt grazed the edge of the Warthog, burning off a side panel. They were trapped. He realized that he still had the grenades from the mission in a crate under the gunner's seat. The Chief set the timer on one grenade to 15 seconds and dropped the grenade into the crate. 

          "Leave the engine on! Get out!" the Chief yelled. Johnson quickly leaped out of the driver's seat, but Andrews was having trouble with a safety restraint. The Chief ripped it off, pushed Andrews out, and leapt off himself. The Warthog continued speeding toward the Hunters as the grenade continued to count down. When the timer reached its end, a loud warning went off, and it exploded. The Warthog's fuel and the grenades also exploded, sending the vehicle flying into the air. All of the Hunters were killed in the blast by the force of the explosion. The Chief and Private Johnson were not heavily injured, but Andrews was the closest because he had gotten out last. He was thrown onto the ground, and a large piece of shrapnel had buried itself into his leg. Johnson was crawling away from the flames when an alien hand grabbed him. He was flung so hard that he disappeared from view. His body slammed into the ground, lifeless. 

          The alien advanced out of the smoke. The Chief could tell that it was the Grand Priest. Andrews moved for his sniper, but two red plasma bolts engulfed him. He collapsed to the ground, two large holes in his body armor. The Chief had managed to tear off the mini-MAC gun with its generator, because it was expensive equipment. Moving quickly, he fired a round at the Priest. Amazingly, it had sidestepped the round and caught it. It dropped the round and continued to advance. 

          _You have to act first. This thing is unbelievably strong. _Cortana yelled in his mind. The Chief grabbed his assault rifle off the ground and emptied a clip at the Priest. Every round bounced off its shield. The rifle did nothing but aggravate it. It sprinted up to the Chief. He punched at the alien as hard as he could. The Elite blocked every blow, and in seconds, it was squeezing the Chief's neck.

          "Well, bastard, just kill me now." The Chief kicked, but it just wasn't enough.

          "After many years, we have finally captured the humans best fighter. You are the ultimate sacrifice to the gods. I will bring you to the Prophets and they will sacrifice you on the homeworld, and your suffering, pain, and death will be watched by the whole Covenant race." the Priest replied. The world around the Chief spun as he ran out of air. Finally, he slumped to the ground, unconscious. The Priest began kicking the Chief into a dropship. It streaked into the air, with troops firing in vain from below. 

          "Weak humans…"


	10. The beginning of the end

Chapter Ten-The Beginning of the End

Updated: The original version clashed somewhat with Chapter 11, and it would be much easier to fix this chapter than the other. Don't ask why.

Author's Note: This was originally intended to be the final chapter but I cut it off early because

1. It was too long and

2. I couldn't keep you guys waiting that long.

So here it is, Chapter Ten. Read, enjoy, review.

The Master Chief sat groggily up on the cold metal floor. Where was he? What was he doing? Why was he even knocked out? He couldn't remember anything. When he turned his head a jolt of pain went through his neck, knocking him to the ground again. It brought back a rush of memories. The mission at the base, the Priest, and finally with his vision becoming blurrier and blurrier until he finally blacked out… The Grand Priest! It had mentioned something about sacrifices and the Covenant homeworld. For some reason, his memory of that wasn't quite clear, and he was still trying to figure out what had exactly happened to him when a sharp boot dug into his back.

"So, the human awakes," the Chief swiveled to the voice. Behind him was a normal spec-ops elite. In the dark shadows of the room, he saw more gray spec-ops armor suits, which meant more elites. Finally, next to what he thought was a door, a blue plasma sword was hovering in the air. No, it was not just a sword. When he adjusted his suit's visor, he saw a gold commander elite.

_Even through all this, your suit still works. Amazing! _Cortana's soft voice came through his mind. The Chief realized that when he used the visor, the suit was still working. With his strength, he could get out of this place! He tightened his muscles and to his surprise, his hands could not move. Glancing behind his back, he realized that a pair of plasma handcuffs held his hands together.

"The priest will come now." The Elite held out something that looked like a plasma rifle. An arc of electricity shot out from the device, and the Chief's suit shut down, leaving him powerless.

_It looks like the suit's circuits for the muscular enhancements seem to be damaged. It will take some time for me to fix this. _

"Take your time Cortana, because it looks like we will be here for a very long time." Chief muttered.

The UNSC cruiser _Maw_…

The AI Havoc stood on a pedestal, speaking to the disheartened Marines.

"Now we all know, the Master Chief was taken by the Covenant Grand Priest at approximately 1200 hours two days ago. The military has no idea where he is, or whether he is alive, or dead. We will have to consider him dead for the moment. Now, look this way, please," Havoc gestured to a hologram floating in the air. "This is an Apocalypse Class hydrogen bomb. It has the power of 200 megatons of dynamite. Each one has an explosion radius of 250 miles and can spread radioactive waste up to 1000 miles away. Several hundred of these can destroy the Covenant homeworld, or at least make it inhospitable. The _Maw_ carries about 200 of these, the same with the _Aurora_. I forgot to mention that each missile buries about 6800 feet into the ground, kicking up a large amount of radioactive dust that will wipe out all life on the planet. They will launch automatically from the ships. The goal of the ground mission is the same, to take the Prophets hostage. However, James will carry the detonator, which will activate the nukes, which will already be buried in the ground. You have thirty minutes to board your respective ships now, or you will be left behind on the _Maw_." The AI shut off the displays in the auditorium.

James stood, heading for the door. On the way out, he met Admiral Stanforth, who was heading toward the bridge.

"Son, I just want to wish you luck. I know that you are on the toughest mission on your life. I don't want your team to get distracted by the loss of the Chief. He was one of our best soldiers, but we can't spend our time grieving over him." The Admiral turned and walked quickly out the door.

James watched him go. After a while he sprinted into the armory, which was where his troops were already picking weapons. He grabbed his special assault rifle and took the remaining grenades from an almost-empty crate lying near him. After putting that aside, he selected a sniper rifle off of a nearby weapons rack and started modifying it. He added another battery pack to increase power and put on an extra powerful 30x scope. James strapped a grenade launcher to the top of the gun, and slung it over his shoulder. He also found the remote detonator for the hydrogen bombs and pocketed it along with the ammo, battery packs and grenades before following his troops to the cryo bay, where they were all sealed into their cryo tubes for the trip to the Covenant homeworld.

Admiral Stanforth watched the two new destroyers, christened _Revenge_ and _Vengeance_, pull out of the half-incinerated Mars shipyard. The ships had been completed earlier than expected and were fitted with the new plasma-Archer missiles, which were similar to the SkyHawks' new missiles. However, both ships did not have AIs. There was no time to install them because the vessels would be accompanying the _Maw_ and _Aurora_ on the mission to the Covenant homeworld. Like the two cruisers, the _Revenge _and _Vengeance_ were heavily reinforced by protitanium, extra shield power, and outfitted with new, more efficient maneuvering thrusters to dodge Covenant fire. This was because all four ships would try to hold off the alien fleet long enough for James and his team to slip through in the captured Covenant cruiser. It was a risky and extremely dangerous plan. It would take a lot of skill, bravery, wits, and luck.

"Havoc, load coordinates of the Covenant homeworld into the main computer. While your are at it, Havoc, give me a status report of the ship." The Admiral turned and looked at Havoc's figure, floating in the air.

_Sir, the reactor has finished charging. MAC guns are at 100 percent capacity, but the techs are bringing on a secondary magnetic accelerator to increase recharge speed and projectile velocity. The techs almost finished the modification of the auxiliary engines, so we should be able to go into Slipspace immediately._

"Alright then. Open a COM link to all of the ships. Transfer ship control to my station, please." The Admiral settled into his chair while pulling tight his safety straps.

_Opening COM system now, sir. We have the Revenge, Aurora, Vengeance, and the Covenant ship on channel. _Havoc shut his own holographic image off in preparation for the jump. The Admiral pressed three buttons on his control panel as the lights shut off to conserve power. A low rumbling shuddered through the ship as it accelerated to make the jump to Slipspace.

"On my mark, one, two, three, mark!" Admiral Stanforth yelled into the COM system. Space around the ships twisted and molded into green blobs, quickly swallowing the ships, leaving only blackness behind.

The Chief struggled against his bindings. With superhuman strength, he tried moving his hands. However without the power of his suit, the bindings continued functioning, containing him easily. A shadow moved in the corners and appeared in front of the Master Chief. It was the Grand Priest.

"So, human alive. You think you beat me? I Grand Priest! Now you fight the god's animal. Many great ones fight but end up food for it. If you defeat, you get quick sacrifice. If you must be rescued, you will get long and slow sacrifice. Take away!" The Priest pointed to the nearest Elite. The Elite lifted the Chief off of the ground and placed a device on his shoulder. He quickly realized he could move his suit again, but when he tried breaking the plasma chains, nothing happened.

"Foolish human. You cannot break this amsalp niahc. It is has never failed," a nearby spec-ops elite laughed in his face. The Elite guarding him shoved him though the door, leaving him in a gravity lift.

After descending the lift, the Chief was once again surrounded by Elites. _Interesting. Not only that the Priest has horrible English- _Annoyed by Cortana's casual behavior, the Chief smashed his helmet hard. _ Okay, okay. All the guards are Elites. I suppose the Grunts and Jackals are not considered worthy. They are lower on the social ladder here._ Cortana observed. The Elites glanced at the Chief momentarily, but continued shoving him toward a large tower-like structure. Upon entering the building, there were several commander elites standing watch with their plasma rifles ready. Behind the Elites were enormous Hunters that waved their shields menacingly at the Master Chief. A short walk brought the Chief to yet another gravity lift.

This gravity lift put in a small room. On the left was a hallway leading out to a stadium with cheering Grunts, Jackals, Elites, and Hunters. With his eyesight, he saw several Elites and Hunters sitting in a box high above the crowd. In the center sat the Grand Priest. It seemed to be kneeling to the rest of them. The whole arena reminded him of the ancient Romans and the Coliseum they built for gladiator fights, which he had learned about many years ago on Reach.

"The Grand Priest and the Prophets are not worthy of your sight. Chose a weapon, or die, human," A commander elite stated. The Elite pointed to a rack of weapons, which included the MAC gun from the Warthog with several human and Covenant weapons. He carefully chose the MAC gun, which still had an ammo container attached to it, and what looked like a large Covenant laser.

_Make the right choice, Chief. _Cortana's worried voice echoed in the Chief's head. He inspected the weapons once and nodded to the commander elite. The elites shoved him into the middle of the stadium, where hisses, alien curses, and several types of hard rocks were hurled into his face. A loud roar diverted his attention from the crowd. To his left, an enormous beast was driven into the stadium. It was at least five times the size of its Hunter handlers and armored scales covered its entire body. One Hunter approached too close to the animal and was sent flying into the sky with one powerful swipe of the beast's paw. The handlers quickly rushed away from the beast as the Grand Priest sat on a bag-like device. A disgusting noise reverberated through the stadium. As the crowd roared, the Chief knew the battle had begun.

The beast slowly approached the Chief. It looked down at him, looking down on him like he was an insect. The animal roared, the noise thundering straight down to the Chief's titanium bones. Then it punched at the Chief. He nimbly avoided the blow, leaving the animal's blow to carry straight into the stands. It hit, crushing though layers of super-hard metal like it was paper.

"Good to bad, bad to worse. What a great day," the Chief muttered.

Admiral Stanforth paced back and forth on the bridge of the _Maw_. Most of his officers were in cryosleep but a few remained on the bridge with him. He was thinking about the Chief. He wondered if the SPARTAN was already dead or dying or if the Covenant spared him for the moment. Knowing the Covenant aliens' hatred of the humans, he thought that the Chief was probably dead. He turned his attention to the screen on his datapad, where a counter was slowly ticking down. The countdown timer was displaying the time for the ship to arrive at the Covenant homeworld. Havoc constantly recalculated the time to make it as accurate as possible. At the moment it displayed that there were three days, eleven hours, thirty-seven minutes and forty-five seconds to arrival. After viewing over the nav data, he resumed his pacing.

Inside the Covenant cruiser, a few Marines were also awake. They were a couple of new recruits and were bringing food to their captured Elite, or, as most of the Marines called it, their "ticket in." When they opened the brig doors and gave it food, the Elite bit hard on a Marine's hand, ripping it clean off with its sharp, shark-like teeth. As the Marine rolled around on the floor in agony, spreading blood everywhere, the other Marines stopped the Elite in its tracks with their plasma-stunners. They bound the alien's mouth with plasma chains, leaving just enough space so it could eat but not bite anything else. Hurriedly, they closed the cell doors and rushed to the Grunt quarters, which had been turned into an infirmary. Not all of the medics were in cryosleep. There were three still inside, cleaning up. This was lucky for the injured Marine, as he would have bled to death quickly. His companions stayed for a while before notifying the AI piloting the ship, who radioed Admiral Stanforth about it. It had been a little bit of excitement for an otherwise dull ship ride.

The monster creature extracted its fist from the twisted shards of metal and alien body parts that had once been stands, filled with Grunts. It lunged at the Chief, grabbing wildly with its gigantic fists. The Chief leapt back in the nick of time. The monster grabbed up a large chunk out of the ground instead of crushing the Chief. The SPARTAN fired his MAC gun at the beast. This only annoyed the giant creature, but it seemed to stun it momentarily. The Chief kept firing at the monster's head, slowly weakening it. He threw the empty weapon away. It hit the ground with a thump. A couple milliseconds later, the alien's enormous fist smashed into the gun, rendering it as flat as a pancake and useless. Quick as a plasma bolt, the Chief leapt onto the nightmare creature's back, smashing away unmercifully at the leathery skin. The monster straightened up, roaring in pain. The sudden movement almost threw the SPARTAN off, but he hung on grimly, ripping out a small piece of skin. The alien cried out again. The Chief saw a huge fist coming towards him and leapt off. The creature's own fist smacked, hard, into its back. There was a sickeningly loud crack, and the monster stumbled, bent double. The Chief swiftly took advantage of the stunned beast, whacking it as hard as he could in the leg. It went down in a huge cloud of dust. The remaining crowd (out of those who had not fled for their lives) roared out in anger. Some Elites in the pulled out plasma rifles and began firing wildly at the Chief. He took cover under his huge opponent, who was being shot at so many times it didn't notice him. Soon it had stopped roaring and shaking because of the innumerable number of plasma streaks hitting it. The Elites continued firing to keep the Chief's head down. Suddenly he noticed a dirty, bloody claw belonging to the beast lying nearby. It had been severed by a well-thrown plasma sword. He grabbed it, using it to cut off a large chunk of the monster's thick skin. It would help shield him from the all-too-familiar onslaught of plasma. He hefted the smelly covering up and ran out as fast as he could. The skin was almost instantly burned away, but the Chief was already at the exit, which was only guarded by two Elites. They were carrying a weapon that looked like a plasma rifle only that it was connected to another device that looked like an energy storage device. When the Elites activated the rifle, a near continuous stream of superheated plasma spewed from the weapon.

Jumping away from the wave of plasma, the Chief leapt over the Elites and kept on sprinting out of the stadium. He fled for his life as the air behind him was filled with long streams of plasma, aimed right for him. In the corner of his eye, he saw the monster climbing to its feet. To his horror, all its wounds were gone and it looked ready to fight again. In fact, it roared once, and then smelled the air. The stench of the skin the Master Chief used to shield himself was still in the air, and the stench trailed the Chief as he hastily ran out of the stadium. However, the Chief had more immediate matters on his hand as he continued to run from the Elites. After sprinting for several minutes, he was not tired at all, but the Elites looked like they were not even exerting any effort at all to keep up with him.

_Come on, you've got to think of an idea before we are killed! Look, there is a vehicle pool over there! Cortana yelled._

Glancing briefly to his left, he sidestepped into the group of vehicles, catching the Elites by surprise. As they continued speeding forward, the Master Chief was well on his way in the opposite direction in a Covenant Ghost. The Chief pushed the vehicle to its maximum speed and made a turn to the left to avoid the enormous monster that chased him out of the stadium. The Elite were heading into the vehicle group when the Chief opened fire with the twin plasma cannons, burning through the shields of Elites and shredding their armor. Caught completely by surprise, the Elites could only stand and stare at their imminent doom.

The smoke and steam cleared the air as Admiral Stanforth clambered out of his special cryo tube. Havoc's voice boomed from the intercom. _Admiral, the Covenant cruiser will be exiting Slipspace in approximately 1 and a half hours. We will follow 4 hours later to allow them to infiltrate the Covenant command center. I have the other AI of the Covenant cruiser confirming the coordinates of the Slipstream exit point. Confirming… _There was a long pause in Havoc's speech he thought for a moment. _Ok, the coordinates are confirmed sir, so you have nothing to worry about this time._ The intercom shut off, leaving the noise of the other cryo tubes to take over once again with their incessant and irritating drone.

In the Covenant cruiser, everyone was more nervous than ever as the clock counted down toward the beginning of the mission and when the time for turning back was over. Marines strolled around the ship, some polishing their weapons, some chatting with their friends like nothing was happening, and some sat nervously in the hangar, wondering what would happen to them down on the planet. Out of all these actions, James was doing none of them. He was still finishing up his plans for attack, and without an AI, it was extremely difficult. The original plans called for the two SPARTANs leading two groups of Marines, with the Master Chief coordinating the attack with Cortana. With the Chief and Cortana gone however, he would have to lead a direct assault on the Covenant fortress, which was situated in an area heavily patrolled by Covenant troops. He could no longer use the flanking maneuver used in earlier plans, forcing him to find a viable plan of attack. While he sat in his quarters thinking, an idea hit him. Finding that the Covenant would probably be after him, he decided to break up his group in two, with half following him as a diversion, while the other half with attack the fortress and capture the prophets. There were several problems however, that were associated with his strategy. His troops could make a mistake in the assault on the fortress, but he had confidence them, so he put that in the back of his mind. Also, there was the possibility of the Covenant not falling for his diversion, which meant slaughter of his troops. Although they were all possibilities, he had faced odds far greater than this, so he did not worry too much. After surviving Reach, he knew anything was possible. He also knew that in war good men die, and he could do nothing about it.

One hour and thirty minutes later, Admiral Stanforth was on the bridge of the _Maw_, rapping out orders, finishing his tactical battle plans, and preparing the bridge officers for the fight of their lives. "Men, we have chased these dirty bastards from our great Earth all the way to their damn homeworld! We will kill, we will be killed, but we will not be defeated! Is that clear?!"

The crew yelled together, "Sir, yes sir!"

James and his crew moved the Elite from the brig and put it in the bridge, preparing to use it as identification. The space near the Covenant homeworld began to twist and deform until a large green hole opened up, revealing the Covenant cruiser. As soon as the cruiser exited Slipspace, a Commander Elite appeared on the main viewscreen. It spoke in an alien language to the other Elite, and they talked for some time until both Elites gave grunts of approval. The Covenant seemed to allow the cruiser to land on the planet, so James, who was in the shadows of the bridge, gave the ship's AI to go ahead with the landing procedure.

While the cruiser approached the planet, James gave orders to the Marines to collect their weapons and prepare for landing. As the cruiser settled gently on the planet, the marines rushed out of the ship and quickly killed the surprised Covenant nearby. They charged a nearby security station, and in five minutes, they had established a beachhead on the Covenant homeworld. James gave to orders to bring out the vehicle from the holds of the Covenant ship. The space on the cruiser was limited, so they only had ten Warthogs and five Scorpion tanks to work with. A custom Warthog also rumbled down the ramp, which was just like the Master Chief's one, but only with a front plasma-machine gun for the front passenger.

"Our first targets are the Covenant communication relays. If we are to make it off this planet alive, those need to come down. It will also make our assault on the fortress easier, because they will have no way to call for reinforcements. They are about 5 kilometers to the west of here, so I will take two Warthogs to check the area out. If you see any Covenant, take them out, because this ship is our only way home," James called to the troops. He picked out two Warthogs to accompany him, and then climbed into the gunner's seat, ready for battle. The Warthogs sped into the distance, unaware about the danger they were about to encounter next.

About 300 meters from the communication relays, James and his group of Warthogs stopped to survey the area. When James increased the zoom on his helmet to focus into the communication relays, he realized that the Covenant presence in the area was much heavier than he had expected. There were several spec-ops Elites patrolling the area, looking alert. Four stationary plasma cannons were placed on all sides. He even saw the eerie green glow of Hunter cannons in the shadows of the structure. Numerous Grunts were walking around or resting near trees. A troop of Jackals were doing a patrol, sweeping in a wide circle around the relay.

Instantly, James knew they were in trouble. The Jackals would pass about 100 meters away from them, but their heightened senses of sight, hearing and smell would cause major trouble for them. A marine coughed softly in the seat of the Warthog, not knowing the danger the Jackals posed. Swiveling their pointed heads, they saw the Marines and gave out a hiss of warning while powering up their shields. The Elites and Grunts rushed to the Jackals searching for the Marines. Taking advantage the grouped Covenant, James ordered the Warthogs to charge, surprising the Covenant. Many of them were taken down in the initial charge, but the Hunters were still on the on the other side of the relays. James ordered his Warthog to continue for the relay building while the other Warthogs went around for another pass at the Covenant. Steadying himself, James took close aim with the MAC at the main tower. The private in the front seat fired the plasma machine gun, sending a stream of plasma-coated bullets into a grunt climbing into a plasma stationary gun, flipping the cannon. James fired the MAC gun and a superheated blue streak tore through the main cannon and cut through a Hunter that was standing on the other side. The impact of the MAC round had seriously damaged the structure, and the hole was not helping, either. He pulled out a grenade and threw it into the hole, bringing down the structure. With the Hunters, their fight was not over yet. They had taken cover in the wreckage of the building, bombarding the group with their superheated plasma cannons. A fuel rod bolt hit the hood of James's Warthog, leaving the engine exposed. He fired the MAC gun again, drilling through the wreckage and through the shield of a Hunter, into its orange flesh. The other Warthogs also opened fire, taking down two of them. The private in the passenger seat fired the machine gun at the last Hunter, tearing it to shreds.

As James gave orders to the Warthogs, he heard the high whine of Ghosts on the horizon. He stared hard at the Ghosts, their noise ever increasing. Two Wraiths accompanied the Ghosts, following close behind. A Banshee howled in the air, flying ahead of the Ghosts. The Covenant had probably spotted the smoke from the tower, which would draw more and more to the area. There was no way his forces could hold off such heavy firepower, so he ordered the Marines at the Covenant ship to put their equipment back into the ship, hoping that they would arrive in time. If not, he was in serious trouble.

The Marines waiting at the ship quickly packed up their vehicles and headed into the Covenant cruiser. When the last Marine jumped in, the ship quickly hovered off the ground and started speeding toward the other Warthogs. In mere seconds, they had covered the five kilometers and they were ready for battle. The Banshee, having spotted their forces, began to rain down plasma on the three scout Warthogs. James fired off the MAC, penetrating its cockpit with a single shot, making it a heap of useless scrap metal. The Ghosts quickly opened fire, filling the air with plasma. The Marines had been taught by Cortana how to use the Covenant cruiser, so they fired the pulse lasers. They sliced through the Ghosts, ripping them apart easily. Seeing that they were vastly overpowered, the Wraiths pulled back, but James did not want to take any chances, so he ordered the tanks to fire again, completely obliterating the Wraiths.

The immediate threat over, James proceeded to brief the Marines. "We are severely outnumbered, but we can outsmart those bastards. The fortress is obviously heavily guarded and the troops guarding it will not leave to pursue any foe, unless there are fast vehicles that can retreat fast, which no doubt there are. To make it easier for us, a few Warthogs will attract the vehicles' attention. They will lead them back to the Scorpions and get the hell out of the way before the place becomes a barbecue. There are bound to be Wraiths and Hunters, too, so here's where the cruiser comes in. It has very heavy shields and armor and awesome firepower, so it'll be very useful. Move out! This is what you've been training your whole life for!"

On the bridge of the UNSC cruiser _Maw_, Admiral Stanforth watched nervously as the countdown timer reached zero. The green view of Slipspace began to fade into… the blackness of normal space. There were only several destroyers, not the massed fleets the Admiral had expected. The Covenant seemed to be considerably surprised, due to the hurried way they powered up their shields. Most of their fleet was on the other side of the planet, with no way to get there in time.

"So, James had disabled those communication relays as he said! I thought the Covenant would be ready for a fight, especially after the initial attack by James's forces. Havoc, I assume you already had the MAC guns charged, so you can fire at will. While you're at it, scan for a tracking signal I had implanted in the Covenant cruiser. If they are in range of a dropship, I want you to send six or seven down there to help," ordered the surprised Admiral.

_Yes sir, ready to fire on your order. The Covenant cruiser is in range sir; I am sending several dropships now. While conducting the scan, I have also detected the Master Chief's FOF tag. I don't what to make of it, though._ Havoc turned to the Admiral.

"Strange, why would they bring him to the Covenant homeworld? I don't get it. Anyway, get a lock on his position and notify James. Havoc, target those two lead ships. Give the orders to the other ships to hold the Covenant as long as they can. We will take on the main Covenant group," called the Admiral.

With a thundering roar, the _Maw _unleashed three huge projectiles covered in plasma at the alien vessels. The first round penetrated completely though one of the frigates, shattering it into millions of gleaming hull fragments. The other two rounds, not even a second apart, struck a cruiser. The first shot slammed through the shields and mutilated the nose of the ship. The second struck the weakened hull, which buckled under the immense amount of damage and was crushed into millions of tiny pieces.

Gazing through the haze of wreckage, the Admiral spotted numerous streaks of charging-up pulse lasers. Behind them, the shadow of only ten Covenant starships began to appear through the wreckage. The final battle in space had begun.

          "What the hell?  Ten ships?  This is all they have to protect their most important planet?" yelled Stanforth.  The bridge crew were equally confused.

_Sir, I am intercepting a number of distress calls, several mentions of "infidels tainting the holy ground" and "recall from the mission of sacred eradication."  Taking evasive action to avoid those lasers. However, there is simply no way that we can evade all of them. We might take some damage, but I think it will be minimal. I have also detected swarms of fighters heading up from the planet. Engaging point-defense cannons now. _Havoc directed the cannons toward the fighters, taking out most of the front row, but for every fighter destroyed, 10 more appeared.

"Do those fighters think they can mess with us? Run them down!" roared the Admiral. The ship shot forward, smashing through hundreds of helpless fighters as they fired on the _Maw_ in vain. On the bridge of the massive cruiser, the impact was almost nonexistent while the heavy shields and armor took most of the damage. A fighter exploded right on the bridge shields, sending the crew ducking to avoid the blinding flash.

"I'm never doing that again," muttered the Admiral while rubbing his eyes.

James sat in his Warthog, listening to the latest tactical briefings while constantly on the lookout for Covenant troops. "Sir, I have some bad news on the Covenant fortress. It looks like it is defended by some sort of plasma cannon designed to fire on incoming aircraft. This means that we have to go in on foot without the cruiser, and we can't use any sort of dropships to bring in supplies. Either we take that tower out, or we have to come up with a new plan."

"Okay, we'll take the gun out first. See if we can get any reinforcements from the ships in orbit. We'll need everything they can send." James said over the COM.

The Marines and SPARTAN watched explosions in the distance. Black dots were descending quickly from space. A blue energy beam would lance into the sky. Once they were close enough, the humans saw that they were Pelicans. Four had blackened and cracked armor plating. Ten of them landed near James, five carrying Warthogs, five Scorpions.

"Pile out!" ordered the Sergeant. Marines jumped out of the dropships.

"It seems you ran into some trouble," noticed James.

"Yeah, there was some big cannon. It was gigantic…fifteen dropships came down, but as you can see, only ten made it. Those bastards' beam cut right through the shields of our dropships! We had some close calls, as you can see. All right, you're clear to go!" the Marine shouted to the Pelican pilots after giving James the information.

"No, wait. If they try to get back to their mother ships, they'll be blasted to hell. Have them dock inside the Covenant cruiser," suggested a Marine.

"Good thinking, Marine! At least one person was listening in OCS!" complimented the Sergeant. He redirected the dropships into the Covenant craft hovering nearby. Now there were fifteen Warthogs and ten Scorpions, all filled with passengers. There were a few medics, too. They would stay behind and establish a temporary base/infirmary, along with the troops not in a vehicle, which numbered forty-six. So the total count for the human forces was 160 Marines (ten piloting the Covenant cruiser, three to a Warthog, which had a driver, passenger, and gunner, except for James's, which only had a driver and passenger, and six to a Scorpion, which had two crew and four passengers apiece) and a SPARTAN. It wasn't much, but then again the humans had always been outnumbered.

The Warthogs rolled to a stop about 500 feet away from the guns, hidden from view by a dense forest of trees. The Scorpions had to wait until the battle was over, because the trees prevented them from moving through. They could have easily blasted apart the forest, but that would alert their enemies. The location was clear of pressure sensors or mines-if the heavy weight of the Warthogs didn't set them off, what would? Covering his Warthog with a camouflage blanket, James walked off to meet with his troops.

"Men, that is the target. First, I want Johnson and a small squad to try and take a look around their base. Once the Covenant troop concentration is assessed, we will attack with full force, taking them by surprise," said James. He walked to a crate of grenades, giving 4 out to each Marine. "Remember, use these wisely. We have a limited supply, so don't go throwing these everywhere."

The scouts didn't have to go far. As soon as they stepped quietly out of the trees, the thick ranks of Elites and Grunts told them enough. Slipping back into the forest, they relayed the news to James.

"One thousand at least? Not very good odds, don't you suppose?" Although they were greatly outnumbered, the Marines had fought-and survived under such odds. James picked up his assault rifle and headed for his Warthog, giving orders as he went. The Warthog started up, with the others following in quick succession.

The human troops did not have long to wait for action. The Warthogs roared out of the dense foliage with plasma-machine guns firing. The Covenant forces were not very surprised because they had heard reports of the previous encounters, but the humans still had a slight advantage. Most low-ranking Grunts fled screaming, but the officer and spec-ops Grunts, along with the Elites, open fire with plasma pistols, rifles, and needlers. The Warthogs drove rings around their enemies spinning wildly. This made most plasma shots useless, but the needlers were a little more effective with their homing mechanisms. Sometimes the Covenant soldiers would accidentally hit their own allies. The passengers and gunners fired crazily into the masses of enemy soldiers. Plasma bullets tore through the aliens. Some of the fleeing Grunts had finally calmed down and started to fire shots at the Warthogs. However, they had stupidly massed themselves, thinking it would protect them. However, it made it easy for only one Warthog to run most of them down. Sure enough, one of the vehicles broke off from the main battle and dodged behind the Grunt ranks.

The driver revved the engine up. Some of the aliens turned, but it was too late. Blood and body parts spewed everywhere from the crushed alien soldiers.

"Disgusting," said the Marine that was in the gunner's seat of that Warthog. He was covered in Grunt parts.

The remaining Covenant forces were being battered by the circling vehicles. Victory was in sight for the human forces until a Ghost force arrived. Thirty of the hover vehicles sped towards the battle. The air was thick with deadly plasma bullets from the Warthog gunners and passengers. This forced the aliens to retreat and rally around the Ghosts.

"Get back in to the cover of the trees! Wait for them to come for us and then open fire!" James ordered. Quickly, to avoid being slaughtered by the furious stream of plasma, they drove back into the forest. Many Warthogs were scarred by plasma, but their occupants had not been badly hurt and they were still operational. The Covenant fell for the trap. Ghosts who had gone in too close were shredded by fire from the plasma-machine guns, and it was difficult for the alien pilots to get a good shot in because of the trees and their own movement. If they stopped, however, they would meet certain death. All the Marine gunners had to do, though, was find a clear path through the trees to fire through and blast anything that was hostile in their line of sight.

Seven flaming Ghost hulks, filled with holes from the plasma rounds, were now resting on the ground. James decided the odds were even enough. "Rush the Elites and Grunts! NOW!" he yelled. The Warthogs broke cover and sped out again with guns blazing. They did not stop to engage the Ghosts and instead fired on the move. James had them continue on towards the alien foot troops, crushing them. Now the battle was truly even. Ghosts exploded one after another, plasma bullets tearing through their thin armor like knives through hot butter. Soldiers had ears ringing from the constant sounds of guns. The Covenant did not go down without a fight, however. One of the Warthogs was hit repeatedly in the engine. Flames spewed out and threatened to engulf the whole vehicle. The crew leapt out just in time.

In the tense silence after the confrontation, James radioed the tanks. "You are clear to make a path through the forest to the tower." Loud explosions announced this. Firefighting crews moved quickly behind the huge tanks, putting out fires caused by the shots so the whole forest wouldn't burn down. If it did, then Covenant forces would be alerted of their presence if they didn't know already, and what cover remained would be gone if the Covenant attacked again.

When the tanks arrived, they immediately began shelling the giant guns. Before long the lethal plasma cannons were reduced to another pile of smoking scrap metal.

"Well, that was easy!" remarked a Marine.

James quickly stifled this remark. "Never think of it that way. If you take it casual against that fortress, you will be killed faster than you can think. If there was ever a time when you needed your skills, it is now. Don't cut back. This is it, boys, we're going in."


	11. The triumphant few, pt I

Chapter Eleven-The Triumphant Few, Part I

A/N: Once again I split the final chapter (which was supposed to be 10) because it was getting too long. 16,000-something words.  So here's the first part, and I'll get the next one out within two weeks.  Also, a lot of indenting errors were caused by MS Word's automatic indenting system, which cannot be converted in HTML.  I tried to find and fix most of them but if you see any ignore them.

          On board the UNSC cruiser _Maw_, Admiral Stanforth gazed at the Covenant homeworld through the port camera.  It was a glittering blue-green sphere, oblivious to the battle raging on it.  He was lost in its beauty for a moment before a sharp blast knocked him off his feet.

          Cursing, he got back up.  "What just happened there?" he yelled.

          "Sir, we just took a pulse laser blast.  Nothing serious, our shield is still holding up fairly well at 87%.  However-" the JG Lieutenant broke off his report when he looked up at the forward viewscreen.  A giant hulk of a ship had just appeared from behind the planet.  The Admiral quickly accessed the files on the Covenant flagship, which was destroyed by the cruiser _The Pillar of Autumn_, at the Reach battle.  He found a silhouette of it, and then brought it alongside the giant Covenant vessel: an almost perfect match, except that the destroyed flagship had a large turret on its prow.

          "Send a warning to all the other ships!  That's a flagship!  All ships break formation!  NOW!" Admiral Stanforth ordered urgently as the huge ship moved closer with every passing second.  "Zoom in on that thing!  Send an encrypted transmission to Earth and see if they can spare any ships!  We need help as we've never needed it before!"

          The forward viewscreen centered and zoomed in on the Covenant craft.  It was sleek, like the rest of the Covenant ships, but much larger.  Twin red specks of light appeared on the giant vessel.  They discharged in roiled crimson balls, splashing over the heavily reinforced shields of the _Aurora_ and draining a quarter of them away instantly.

          "Plasma!  Havoc, get a targeting lock on that ship now!  Fire when ready!" the Admiral ordered.  Suddenly, he hesitated.  The Covenant flagship at Reach did not use ordinary plasma; instead they used an extremely fast gray-white beam.  So why were they using plasma when they had a much better weapon?  He could only wonder as the battle raged on.

On the Covenant homeworld…

          "Warthogs, spread out.  If we're bunched up, we'll be an easy target for any heavy artillery the Covenant have," warned James.

          Suddenly, a group of Banshees in an arrowhead formation screamed in from a mountain range.  Plasma shots filled the air.  Quickly, the Warthog drivers swerved aside to avoid the deadly energy.  Plasma-chain guns brought down a few aircraft.  The remaining forty-odd Banshees broke formation and picked targets.  Deadly Fuel Rod Cannon shots slammed into the ground, leaving smoking craters.  A Warthog swerved to avoid one shot and collided into James's Warthog.

          "Watch where you're going, Marine!  Were you listening at all in basic training?" the SPARTAN yelled angrily.

          Meanwhile, the Scorpions were firing their plasma cannons at the fighters in vain.  The Banshees were too fast, so only a few shots hit.  Their plasma-machine gun tracers, however, caused more damage.

          Ghosts flew in from behind a hill, spewing plasma at the Warthogs.

          "The Banshees were just a distraction!  Scorpions, target those Ghosts before they get too close!" James ordered as he sighted the MAC gun at a Banshee.  "Warthogs, keep firing at those Banshees!"

          One Warthog was swerving to avoid a Ghost and drove straight into a Fuel Rod blast.  The front half of the vehicle was burned away.  The driver was instantly killed and the passenger Marine tumbled out with downed shields and badly scorched armor.  The rear plasma-chain gun and gunner, however, were intact and he continued firing for a few seconds before jumping out to help his wounded comrade to get out of the thick of the fight.  He supported the Marine to a temporary camp that had been set up, with Marines manning plasma-chain gun turrets around it.  After helping his fellow soldier into the temporary infirmary, he ran off towards the nearest tank, leaping on to it.

          James put a giant hole through a Banshee with his MAC gun.  It came crashing down, a useless flaming hulk.  The sky was still thick with the deadly flyers, however.  Three of them converged on one Warthog, picking off the gunner and wounding the driver with furious streams of plasma.  Before this, however, the brave gunner had holed up one of the Banshees, sending it down.  Angrily the veteran Marine passenger took his fallen friend's place, dealing out destruction to the airborne foes that had killed so many that he knew.

          "If we keep losing forces at this rate, we won't have enough forces to take the fortress!" yelled Sergeant Jacobs, a well-respected Marine, through the COM channels.

          "You're right!  We're pulling back to the temporary base!  All troops fall back!  Scorpions, cover us with some heavy fire, but don't stay too long!  Move it, Marines!" ordered James.

          The Warthogs sped off, still firing.  They heard booms not far behind; this was the Scorpions, who finally were able to fire their main cannons at the Ghosts because the Warthogs had been there, and firing at that time would have killed their allies.  The plasma-charged shells like tissue paper tore through ghosts, and the tracers and passengers shot down Banshees.  After causing some chaos within the Covenant ranks, they withdrew with turrets still pointing back should the aliens try a charge.  The cruiser hovered overhead the camp, because the crew onboard had detected high plasma energy levels at the fortress, which meant more plasma cannons.

          Contrary to most of the humans' beliefs, the Covenant did not attempt an attack.

          "This isn't like the Covenant…they've got something up their sleeves for sure," mused James as he munched on some combat rations.  "Troops, stay on the alert.  They may try attacking at any time."

          After finishing his food, James slapped on a fresh battery and loaded in ammo into his assault rifle, then leapt to an open plasma machine gun turret.

          "Motion detectors are picking up movement on the east side!  All troops, get ready to fire!" a Marine yelled over the COM channel.

          James was ready, being on the eastern side of the base.  In the corner of his eye, he noticed a slight movement in the foliage.  Turning quickly he fired his turret at the distortion.

          Grunts burst in on all sides. James turned the turret to face the threat and fired.  The aliens dropped like flies.  One Grunt that he had missed readied a plasma grenade.  James did not see the creature.

"Covering fire!" yelled a Marine as he fired his MA5BP at the Grunt's head.  It fell, methane hissing from its mask, the grenade dropping next to it.  It detonated, vaporizing the body but doing no other damage.

          "Thanks!  Nice shot!" James said while firing at a few Jackals that had appeared.  The plasma-charged rounds sliced into their shields, disabling them and peppering them with holes.

          Several Elites rolled in through the vegetation, plasma rifles blazing.  They focused their fire on a lone Marine, bringing down his shields and penetrating his armor with combined fire.  He dropped to the ground.  James swung the heavy gun toward the Elites.  James fired angrily, quickly cutting through the Elites' shields and armor.  No more enemies appeared.  He abandoned the turret and raced for his Warthog.  "While they're distracted, move out!  Scorpions, follow behind!"

          The Warthogs rocketed out of the foliage, surprising several sleeping Grunts on the other side. The Scorpions lumbered on behind.  The fortress could be seen in the distance, with its tall spikes rising majestically into the sky. Taking a quick glance at his HUD, James checked the estimated survival time for the ships in orbit. It read one hour, twenty minutes. There was very little time left.  As the Warthog drove on, he wondered where the Banshees that had been harassing them earlier were, as he knew many had survived.  He kept alert as the Warthog sped on over the grassy terrain.

On the UNSC Cruiser _Maw_…

          The Admiral grimly surveyed the readouts scrolling over his data pad about the giant Covenant ship.  The missing turret pod was the turret that contained the deadly beam that had destroyed so many UNSC ships at Reach.  He breathed a sigh of relief; however, the ship still posed a tremendous threat.  It could launch six plasma torpedoes at once, since it had three dual-cannon plasma turrets.  Two turrets were mounted near the needlelike bow of the ship, while the other was located aft.  It also had twenty-four pulse laser pods and thick armor.  Despite its size, the vessel had maneuvering thrusters and twelve plasma engines, so it could move around at an astonishing pace.  The Admiral paused to think about his personal question before: why did the Covenant use older weapons when they had a much deadlier one?  Even without the new beam, the ship was definitely superior to normal Covenant vessels, but he guessed that the new weapon was highly experimental, hard to produce, or something similar to that.

          "Target the MAC guns at that ship. Push the engines to 200%," ordered Stanforth.

          "Sir, according to past references filed by the _Pillar of Autumn_, this type of ship seems to be very tough. Its shields can take large amounts of punishment. I suggest you use some plasma Archer missiles to soften it up before firing the plasma MAC," suggested the weapons officer.  The _Maw_ had 400 forward plasma Archer missile pods, in twenty rows of twenty, a hundred more missile pods than what the famous Halcyon-class cruiser _Pillar of_ _Autumn_ had.  The cruiser also had 100 aft missile pods.  All the missile pods held thirty-six Archers.  Each plasma-sheathed missile could do about twice the damage of a normal one.  The _Maw_ could do tremendous amounts of damage without even using its three plasma MAC guns.  These could inflict nearly three times the damage of a normal MAC, since the plasma made both the direct impact damage and transfer of momentum to the target much more powerful.  They could rip a normal Covenant frigate or anything smaller into millions of tiny fragments, just like the Super MAC guns did.  Larger ships, like destroyers, cruisers, and carriers would just take tremendous damage.  The plasma charge was a big help against wearing down shields, too.  Despite all this, the Admiral still wondered if it would be enough to destroy all the Covenant ships.

          "Noted.  Get a firing solution and fire forward Archer pods A1 through A10.  Charge the MAC guns," ordered Stanforth.  A second later, there was a series of thumps and 360 Archer missiles swarmed toward the giant Covenant ship.  On the viewscreen, the missiles were seen as blue streaks in the distance.  The ship's pulse laser turrets tracked the incoming missiles and fired.  The familiar blue strobes of light hit the missiles, but it seemed to be absorbed by the plasma-sheathed missiles.  The Admiral noted this effect on plasma-charged projectiles.  Before he could think any more about the effect, the missiles impacted on the giant Covenant ship.  The shields flared silvery-gray, contrasting with the bright blue-orange explosions of the Archer missiles.

          "MAC guns ready, sir," reported the weapons officer.

          "Arm forward Archer pods A11 through A20.  Havoc, get a firing solution for MAC round impacting with the missiles.  Fire when ready," commanded the Admiral.

          A few heartbeats later, there were a familiar series of thumps as the Archer missiles fired again.  After the missiles had progressed considerably, the great ship shuddered and the lights dimmed as the plasma MACs fired.  Three giant fiery-blue streaks of light sped after the missiles.

          "Havoc, zoom in on that Covenant ship!" cried the Admiral.  Although he did not provide any explanation, the AI knew what ship he was talking about.

          The forward viewscreen centered and zoomed in on the targeted area.  The ship did not attempt to move out of the way, however, twenty-four blue smears appeared along the great vessel.

          "Pulse lasers!" yelled Stanforth.  "Havoc, fire all port maneuvering thrusters!"  There was a rumble and the giant cruiser moved out of the line of fire.

          The pulse lasers lanced out from the Covenant ship.  Eight shots were clean misses, but the other sixteen had re-adjusted their trajectory before firing.  The deadly beams of light played along the shield, which glowed solid yellow and blazed out of existence.  The ship rocked and several standing officers were thrown to the ground.  The Admiral was grasping a handrail, and saw everything.  The Archer missiles and MAC rounds struck.  The Covenant ship was covered in the blue-orange explosions of the missiles and the huge blue streaks of the MAC rounds.  The enemy craft's shield shimmered and popped, then gave.  One blue flash, a MAC round, got through and smashed into the side of the titanic ship.  A huge hole was ripped into the ship and a portion of the hull was mangled and burning from the concussion.  Twenty missiles also made it through, holing the badly damaged area further.  The vessel spun in circles from the venting atmosphere until the pilot managed to right the ship.  It turned to face its side to the _Maw_.  The plasma turrets turned, and they heated to a hellish red-orange.  The Covenant flagship was getting ready for a broadside.

          "No!  Our shields are still recharging from those pulse lasers!  They'll take ten seconds to fully recharge to 100%, and we don't have that much time!  Our shields only start to recharge at 10% per second after five seconds, but all types of, even Covenant, shields stop recharging when hit!  That means we might not even get a halfway charge!" screamed the officer at ops station.

          "If they take us down, they'll go with us!  Charge the MAC guns!  We're going to blow them to hell with us!" yelled Stanforth.

Planetside…

          James's question about the Banshees was quickly answered.  Fifty of the deadly aircraft screamed over a clump of trees to the Warthogs' left.  They caught many of the gunners unawares.  Plasma slashed out the Banshees' weapon pods.  Some fired Fuel Rod shots.  Two Warthogs were blasted into oblivion before the Marines realized what was happening.

          "Warthogs, break formation!  Don't get hit by Fuel Rods!" ordered James quickly.  He aimed the mini-MAC at a Banshee swooping down on a Warthog stuck on a rock.  There was a flash and the Banshee turned into a falling piece of scrap metal.  The Warthog that he had saved quickly freed itself and James turned his attention away from it.

          The Covenant fliers split into groups, each group pursuing a Warthog.  They learned to avoid James's with its deadly mini-MAC gun.  The plasma-chain guns were not much a relief, however.  Banshees spiraled down like leaves in an autumn gale.  Despite this, one group was successful.  A Warthog stopped, its engine melted away by a hail of plasma.  The driver and passenger leapt out, heading for cover behind rocks.  The gunner bravely continued firing and shot down three before he was killed by two Fuel Rod blasts.

          By now the tanks had arrived.  Some pilots of the aircraft realized how big a threat they posed and quickly flew away.  The unlucky ones that did not notice were utterly disintegrated by the plasma cannons.

          Since the humans only had eleven Warthogs and ten Scorpions left, they retreated to the camp, which was quiet after the recent battle.  The wounded were left to be treated by the medics and fresh Marines took their places.

James decided to defend the base until the wounded Marines were ready to man the stationary plasma machine guns.  He couldn't leave the area undefended.  While he waited he gave his troops a quick briefing on the new plan.

          "Troops, the cruiser has detected high amounts of beta particle radiation in five points near the fortress.  This means the fortress itself has at least five of those giant plasma cannons.  I also expect the fortress to be heavily shielded.  This will be like taking on a Covenant starship with foot troops.  I cannot say that all of you will survive, but we'll have to do our best.  Ignore everything else-just concentrate on punching through the shield and destroying those guns!  Only the passengers can target and distract the ground forces.  To protect us we can use the three portable shield generators we brought aboard the captured Covenant ship.  My Warthog will tow these.  The cruiser will periodically move in to fire its weapons.  It will take hits but then it will retreat to recharge its shield and weapons.  Once the guns are down, the cruiser can move in and decimate any remaining ground forces.  Then we infiltrate the fortress itself.  Now let's move!"

          The human forces moved out again, in a spread out formation this time.  They slowed a bit so the Scorpions could stay close.  James had this idea, as they might need the extra firepower, even if the main cannons were not used.  The coaxial machine guns were still very powerful, and most had passengers, which added to the stream of plasma-charged bullets.

          They moved on through another forest.  Ghosts started harassing them on all sides.  The Covenant had realized that using foot troops would be suicidal, so they had sent in the Ghosts.  There were two flaws to this: the trees limited the vehicles' maneuverability, and therefore were easier targets.  The aliens' second mistake was send Ghosts behind the human soldiers, this way, the tanks had a clear shot without Warthogs in the line of fire.  However, the Covenant had one advantage: numbers.  There were easily fifty of the hover vehicles and despite the humans' efforts fifteen Ghosts broke through the defense and concentrated fire on a Scorpion.  One, two, four, six, seven of the floating vehicles were blasted away, but the others continued firing.  The ceramic-protitanium armor was slowly melted away and the tank started flickering with flames.  The crew and passengers quickly leapt away from the smoldering vehicle as it was engulfed in the fire.  The remained of the Ghosts were quickly disposed of and the six extra Marines trudged back to the base.

          Although the humans had a high kill ratio to the aliens, they simply did not have enough troops and vehicles to do continue losing one or two Scorpions or Warthogs every time they engaged in a skirmish.  There were still many Covenant forces waiting at the fortress.  James realized this and had the Scorpions push the engine as much as they could.  If it overheated by the time they reaching their firing range of the fortress, the engine wouldn't be needed anyway.  The Warthogs easily kept pace.

          Before long they had reached the fortress.  It was a giant building, the plasma cannons jutting out near the top.  The Scorpions started shelling.  The shield shimmered and took the hits easily.  The Warthogs also fired their plasma LAAGs at the cannons.   The Wraiths stationed around the building fired, giant balls of plasma heading toward the grouped humans.  James leaped out of the Warthog and quickly activated the shields.  The egg-shaped shots smashed into the trees above, obliterating the plants.  The SPARTAN leapt back into the gunner's position and fired the MAC at a plasma gun.  The passenger was shredding Grunts, Jackals, and Elites with his plasma machine gun.  Shots from plasma pistols, plasma rifles, and needlers were useless against the three layers of heavy shields.  The Wraiths fired again.  The deadly plasma blew away the last of the covering trees.  The next salvo would hit the shields.  The Covenant soldiers that were not in vehicles retreated into the fortress, as they were helpless against the plasma-charged bullets spewing out at them and could not hope to damage the portable shields.

          What few Ghosts that remained were quickly destroyed by the Warthog and Scorpion passengers.  Banshees were still thick in the air, however, Fuel Rod Cannons and plasma cannons firing crazily.  Wraiths could not get a clear shot because of all the aircraft.  The first layer of shields flickered and went out-it would take ten precious seconds to recharge.  The passengers fired their MA5BPs (assault rifles), M6DPs (pistols), M90Ps (shotguns), S2 AMPs (sniper rifles), and M19P SSMs (rocket launchers) up at their airborne foes.  Many exploded in chunks of purple metal and flame, but sometimes they would crash down on the shields, damaging it further.  The second layer popped, blazed yellow, a flashed away.  It looked like all was lost for the humans' plan, but suddenly two red streaks passed by overhead.  It was the plasma from the cruiser!  It melted completely through Banshees as if they weren't there, then slammed into the fortress's shield, which flickered silver, then cooled once more.  It still had not been broken.

          However, the plasma torpedoes had caused much chaos within the Covenant ranks.  The shields had enough time to recharge before the aliens began the attack again.  The Marines and James kept firing, wondering how long they could hold out.

In orbit over the planet…

          The Admiral stared grimly at the MAC status screen.  It read 71% charge.  It didn't look like they would make it.  The red blotches at the turrets of the huge Covenant ship were burning bright now, hard to look at for more than an instant, maybe five seconds away from launching.  They wouldn't make it.   The Admiral felt sweat trickling down his neck.  There wouldn't be any time to evacuate-they were all dead.

          Suddenly there was a flash to his right-the _Revenge_ had just fired its twin plasma MAC guns.  The rounds streaked across the blackness of space, crossing the distance in mere seconds.  The super-charged projectiles sliced through the enemy ship's recharging shields and made two giant holes in the hull.  Three-fourths of the ship's hull was now crumpled and mangled from the concussive damage of the MAC rounds.  The _Maw_'s bridge officers sighed in relief. 

Atmosphere vented in dozens of places, spinning the Covenant ship erratically.  The plasma fired while the ship was pointing at one of its own frigates.  One torpedo zipped out the explosion that followed, arching towards the _Maw_.  By now, however, the shields were back online at 100%, so the hull remained intact.

          For now.

          The threat was far from over.  Seven enemy ships still remained, and Havoc reported some more bad news.  "_Sir, the _Vengeance_ is pulling out to recharge its shield.  It took several pulse laser hits before it made the intrasystem jump, so the ship's port armor plating is down to two point seven one meters from three meters."_

          "All right, Havoc, we're pulling back with the _Vengeance_.  Tell the _Aurora_ and _Revenge_ to move back also.  Don't use extra power to make an intrasystem jump; we'll need the power.  Just push the engines to maximum operating parameters," ordered Stanforth.

          "Engines running at 350%, sir," reported the ops officer.  "ETA to the _Vengeance_'s position is thirty seconds."

          "Affirmative.  Keep those MAC guns hot!  We'll need them!  Havoc, track any target you want-keep a firing solution for the MAC guns on it," commanded the Admiral.

          On the rear view screen, the destroyer and cruiser fired a last few plasma Archer missiles and turned.  Their engines flickered to life and with a rumble they sped after the _Maw_.  Since all human ships had been refitted with the new reactor technology, which had been upgraded since the _Pillar of Autumn_ used it, they outran the Covenant battlegroup, but not by a very large margin.  The alien vessels could still be glimpsed fairly well without zoom through the rear cameras.

          "Push the engines as far as you can!" said the Admiral, not satisfied with the progress.

          "Aye, sir.  Engines are running hot at 400%.  ETA in twelve seconds."

          Now the Covenant ships started to lag behind.  The sleek vessels slowly faded to specks in the rear camera viewscreen until Havoc hit the scopes and brought the sizes back up.

          Within seconds the _Maw_, _Aurora_, and _Revenge_ reached the other ship's positions.  They fired maneuvering thrusters to turn around.  After nearly a minute had passed the Covenant ship that Havoc had targeted was in firing range.  Three MAC rounds streaked toward a light Covenant destroyer.  Only one of the MAC rounds struck true, burning down the ship's shields.  The other two sailed harmlessly into space.

          The other three ships had fired as well; three MAC rounds from the _Aurora_ decimated a Covenant frigate, and two rounds each from the _Revenge_ and _Vengeance_ took out a cruiser.  360 plasma Archer missiles from the _Vengeance_ slammed into a carrier's shield, which flickered and went out.

          The Admiral flicked on a mic.  "Longsword Squadrons Alpha through Charlie, get out there!  Stand by to engage enemy fighters!"  Sure enough, the teardrop-shaped Covenant craft streamed out of the carrier's bulging launch bays in droves, heading straight for the small human battlegroup.  Seconds later, three MAC rounds from the _Aurora_ decimated their mother ship, but by then many fighters had already been launched.

          It seemed like the _Aurora_, _Vengeance_, and _Revenge_ had also realized that the threat and launched several squadrons of their own fighters.  The humans and even their AIs had enough problems on their hands without targeting the 70mm plasma point-defense machine guns. There were flickers of the yellow shields of the Longswords and the silver shields of the Seraphs.  The blue streaks of the Seraphs' miniature pulse lasers and the bullets from the Longswords' 120mm plasma chain guns lit battle scene with an eerie glow.  Larger blue flashes indicated the Longswords launching their plasma ASGM-10P missiles, each of which were about equal to an plasma Archer missile's power.

          Another alien carrier released its fighters.  They swarmed towards the raging single-ship battle, which had moved away from the capital ships.  Both the Covenant and human pilots had realized they would soon be blasted out of existence had they stayed in the firing path of the plasma torpedoes, pulse lasers, plasma MAC guns, plasma Archer missiles, and plasma point-defense autocannons.

          The Admiral cursed, then clicked the mic back on.  "All Longswords, I repeat, all Longswords, go help your mates out before they get overwhelmed!"  He paused to turn off the mic.  "Send a message to the other ships to get all of their fighters out there also," he ordered the COM officer.

          Within seconds another wave of the arrowlike human fighters had launched from the four ships and headed towards the fighter skirmish.  Stanforth watched them go until a blast brought him back to the battle at hand.

          Now the remainder of the Covenant forces had arrived and were surrounding the humans.  They focused fire on the _Vengeance_.  Plasma torpedoes lashed into the destroyer's shields.  They flashed yellow and cooled when suddenly several volleys of pulse lasers and another two plasma bolts hit the shields also.  They flickered once then went out.  A few fighters that had remained behind started attacking the ship.  The small pulse lasers could not do much about the protitanium armor, but soon a larger Covenant vessel would target the ship.  The human ship fired off its twin MAC guns at a frigate that was charging plasma torpedoes, which shattered.  Quickly, the other human destroyer and two cruisers moved in to take damage for the _Vengeance_.  Plasma and pulse lasers crashed into their shields.

          "Fire MAC guns at that destroyer!" ordered the Admiral.  "Arm Archer pods B1 through B20 and get a firing solution on a destroyer!"

          The three burning blue streaks obliterated the enemy into millions of tiny metal pieces.  720 plasma Archer missiles crossed the black void between the _Maw_ and the targeted ship and peppered the shield.  More than 200 missiles made it through, burning flaming holes all over the starboard side of its hull.  The force of the atmosphere venting blew it straight into the firing line of a frigate, which conveniently fired as this happened.  The destroyer floated in a few large chunks, its crew killed by the plasma Archer missiles, the plasma from the frigate or had asphyxiation from being sucked out into space.

          Despite this luck, a task force of about twenty Covenant ships had emerged from Slipspace.  Plasma and pulse lasers hammered into the human vessels' shields, which slowly weakened.  The Covenant formed a ring around the beleaguered humans.  Although the human ships had been heavily reinforced, eventually the aliens would break through the shielding, burn away the protitanium and tear apart the superstructure.

          The _Vengeance_'s shield had now recovered, but now the _Revenge_'s was down, and before the others could cover it the destroyer had taken numerous starboard pulse laser hits and one plasma torpedo hit and the armor was down to two point zero three meters.

          Stanforth had been wondered one question all along, and it was the same as the ground forces' thoughts, but now it became clearer than ever: would they be able last out long enough?  The Covenant had obviously called for reinforcements, which the Admiral felt were drawing too closer for comfort.

Planetside…

          Another salvo of plasma streaked towards the fortress.  However, without the on-board AI navigating, the crew of the Covenant cruiser had put it a little to close.  The plasma guns swiveled and fired.  These bolts were slightly different than normal plasma, however.  They were tinged purple-red and were much longer than the bolt most humans were used to seeing.  It hit the cruiser as the ship's bolts hit the fortress.  The shield on the massive building flashed and went out.  The troops cheered as the Scorpions fired at the new type of plasma guns, but it was quickly stifled as they saw the familiar glimmer of silver-gray-which meant another layer of shields protecting the guns themselves.  Instead, the giant tanks swiveled their guns to target the luminous shield projection ports to prevent the initial layer of shields from recharging.  They jutted out more than other parts of the building, probably so they were past the first layer.  A few moments later, the ports were smoking craters in the side of the huge fortress.

          The plasma that hit the cruiser had sliced through the shields, which were kept at lower power because they did not expect to be hit and the power was instead diverted to the engines and weapons.  Two bolts came through and scored two large ragged holes in the side, going right through armor and decks.  The lucky thing for the humans was that nobody was aboard that particular section, and since they were not in space there was no venting of atmosphere.  However, it still was nothing to celebrate about.

          Wraith shots hammered into the shield.  The passengers with heavy weapons brought down a few, but it wasn't enough.  Finally, some of the Scorpions had to divert their firepower to take down the enemy tanks.  Plasma shells ripped through the armor as if it wasn't there.  The tanks retreated behind a large barrier of rocks.  Their mortar weapon allowed them to fire even though their front was blocked, but the humans were not stupid.  They angled their shots so it would explode behind the tanks, and the detonation of the shell would destroy some Wraiths.

          Not all, however.  The egg-shaped plasma continued to rain down on the shield as the battle continued.  The first layer flashed out of existence.  The Scorpions fired at the rocks.  It would take a few more volleys to completely destroy the Covenants' cover.  The second layer began to weaken.  The human tanks fired again.  The Wraiths responded with their own weapons.  The second layer was holding by a fraction.  The Scorpions fired another salvo, and the rocks were blown away.  Some Warthogs also diverted their attention to the bulbous tanks and cut them down.  Many managed to fire one last wave of shots, though.  These destroyed the second layer.  However, there was not much need for the shield any more.  Or was there?

          James was just about to give the order to move out when masses of Hunters appeared on the hill on the other side of the fortress.  They were spread out to avoid being massacred by the tanks, and it was very hard to score a decent hit at that range without a sniper or rocket launcher.  Green blotches appeared along the Hunter line.  Fuel Rod shots rained down on the third shield.  The Scorpions fired, but there were too many and they were spread out too much.  The third shield quickly faded out.  The lethal green streaks of light melted away trees and the surrounding foliage.  Two Warthogs were hit, one was completely destroyed, and another had everything but the gunner and the plasma chain-gun disintegrated.

          "Retreat!  We can't take that firepower!" ordered James hurriedly.  As they turned to leave, another Warthog was hit, this time the gunner and rear gun were burned away.  The driver and passenger leapt out before the rest was turned into a pile of liquefied metal.  They ran quickly after the retreating forces.  The Scorpions were a little too slow; one of the cumbersome tanks was hit by seven Hunter shots and burst into flames.  Its crew of two leapt out before the Scorpion exploded, and the two surviving passengers had long since fled.

          When they reached the rally point, which was the current location of the Covenant ship, James had the crew turn on the gravity lift and two by two for Warthogs or one by one for Scorpions the human troops were sucked up into the sleek alien cruiser.

          Once onboard, James gave orders for his troops to seek medical attention if they needed it and get some rest.  Weary as he was, he headed straight to the control room for a tactical update on the space battle.  Then he gave orders for the crew shifts to be changed and headed to the Elite quarters, which had been converted into crew quarters.

          The door slid open and the familiarity of the scene caused him to grip his modified assault rifle harder.  He relaxed as he saw Marines chatting, lying in bunks, inspecting weapons and armor suits, and other such leisurely tasks.  He walked over to his special private room and locked the door.  Once inside, he pulled off his MJOLNIR suit and pulled on his normal crew clothes.  He set the alarm to ring in two hours and hopped into his bed, but not before putting away his weapons and suit in a personal armory and unlocking the door.

In orbit…

          Admiral Stanforth cursed as he read reports on the _Revenge_.  He noticed a Covenant cruiser readying more plasma torpedoes to fire on the weakened _Revenge_.  "Havoc, get a firing solution on that cruiser!  No not that cruiser, the one aiming for the _Revenge_!"  Fire MAC guns when ready!"  Seconds after this command, the lights dimmed and the cruiser shuddered as the great cruiser unleashed three more bright MAC rounds.  They slammed through the shield and slashed through the ship, contorting parts of the hull until it was barely recognizable.  The cruiser spun madly until blast doors or bulkheads were sealed off.  It retaliated with the plasma torpedoes it had been charging.

          "Arm and fire Archer pods C1 through C5 at that cruiser!" he commanded.  Although he was only firing 180 missiles, the plasma-charged explosives were enough to finish off the wounded vessel.  He watched as the two ruby balls of light grew brighter and brighter until it seemed to fill the whole viewscreen.  "Havoc, divert 50% engine power to forward shields!" he yelled out quickly.  The craft slowed considerably before the two deadly blotches of light slammed into the shield.  The ship rocked and creaked and the viewscreen was filled with the crimson glow of the alien weapons and golden flash of the human ship's shields.

          "Shield report!" he shouted to the ops officer.

          _"Shields at 72%, sir, that extra power from the engines helped a lot,"_ replied Havoc before the JG officer could respond.  _"Should I divert power back?"_ questioned the AI.

          "No, moving is not much of concern.  On second thought, we need to get out of this ring of death.  Switch the power flow back and charge Shaw-Fukijawa Translight Engines.  Get an exit vector on the other side of the planet.  Notify the other ships as well," ordered the captain.  "And get those Longswords back into their respective ships."

          _"But sir, you said it yourself, that'll cause a major drain of-"_

          "I don't care if it'll drain power-we'll have more of a chance if we get out," the Admiral cut into Havoc's statement.  "Do it.  Now."

          _"Aye, sir,"_ said Havoc, in a slightly smaller voice.  His voice was heard giving orders to the Longswords and other ships over the COM channel.  The black arrowheads in the distance regrouped and fired afterburners to reach their mother ships.  The Seraphs strained to keep up but lagged behind.  The Covenant pursed the human fighters all the way to their docking bays and then started attacking the ship with their small pulse lasers.  Blue streams of 70mm lights flashed in the vacuum, penetrating the fighters' shields and hulls almost instantly.

          The space in the battle zone warped and twisted with a sickly green light and the four human warships disappeared.  The alien ships that had fired had their shots slam into their own ships.  The shots that had been disengaged dispersed in clouds of plasma.

          After this confusion, it took mere seconds for the Covenant to track them.  The order was given to warp in after them.  The fleet, now down to about 120 ships, appeared in normal space to be hit on four sides by plasma Archers and MAC rounds.  Havoc had also cleverly placed a HARBRINGER-I class nuclear missile at the exit vector.  The new warhead had more densely compacted explosives and lithium triteride casing, the same as the rumored Novas in development-"planet killers."  It gave the missile a power of sixty megatons, a full thirty megatons more than the HAVOK tac-nukes.  The large missile detonated in a fiery red-orange explosion that engulfed ship after ship.  The _Maw_,_Aurora_, _Revenge, _and _Vengeance_ had pushed their reactors to critical level, fleeing from the nuke.  The remnants of the Covenant fleet were utterly vaporized by the enormous power of this destructive device.  Three ships that remained were mangled beyond recognition, burning, radioactive, and motionless.

          Stanforth breathed a sign of relief.  He opened a connection to the rest of his "fleet."  "Good work, men.  Now that the Covenant had been sent to where they belong, we can give those ground forces some-"

          He was cut off midsentence.  Fifteen Covenant ships had appeared out of nowhere, surrounding the _Revenge_.  Fortunately they were all frigates, headed by a destroyer.  They remained dark and motionless, typical of a Covenant Slipspace jump.

          Now there was no hope of saving the _Revenge_.  The Admiral ordered an evacuation of the ship using life pods and dropships and transfer of all systems and weapons controls to Havoc.  He ordered all ships to attack the inert Covenant to buy the crew more time.  Three salvos of MAC rounds-three more hulks in the space above the homeworld.  Havoc also took out one ship with the _Revenge_'s guns and another with a swarm of missiles.  The _Aurora_also fired off hundreds of missiles.  Small lights started winking on along the hulls of the smooth Covenant ships.  Fifteen seconds later, one more ship was gone from hundreds of plasma Archer missiles and the rest were powered up and fully operational.  About an eighth of the _Revenge_'s crew had evacuated.  Stanforth cursed; they needed more time.  Half of the Covenant ships turned and fired thrusters to engage the other three ships.

          Blue light from alien energy weapons danced on the _Revenge_'s hull.  They lashed out, deadly fingers of light reaching out and touching the ship's shields with devastating force.  Stanforth noticed that the engines were dark and no ripple near the MACs that indicated they were charging.  In fact, over half of the lights on the ship had gone dark or red.  Obviously the captain had diverted almost all reactor energy to the shields.  Another minute slipped past, and amazingly the shield was still holding up, although Havoc notified Stanforth that the shields were down to 47%.  The Covenant started to use their plasma weapons.  Their lateral sections started to glow red.

          "MAC guns ready, sir," said the weapons officer tersely.

          "Fire at will!"

          Once again, the guns flashed and spat destruction out at a Covenant frigate.  It turned and fired all eight of its pulse turrets at the cruiser.  It seared off of the shields, which crackled and hissed before fading.  A millisecond later, there were only fragments of the ship left. 

          The _Vengeance _released its fighter squads.  They swarmed to escort the escape craft for the _Revenge.  _By now two minutes had passed since the first evacuation order.

          "Havoc, _Revenge_'s status?" asked Stanforth.

_          "Shields at 7%.  75% of the crew have evacuated.  The remainder are piling into the ship's ten Pelicans.  They'll be off within the next thirty seconds, sir,"_ reported the AI.  _"MAC guns offline.  Fourteen Archer missile pods still loaded."_

          As they watched forward viewscreen, the _Revenge_'s shield dimmed from a plasma bolt, then flashed out.  Three pulse laser bolts carved paths in the protitanium.  Out of the four docking bays, they saw the dropships slide out and ignite their engines.  They were three times as fast as the old models used on Halo.  As they watched, a pulse laser cut straight through one of the vessel's shields, through the armor, hull, and out the other side.  It exploded immediately.

          Havoc launched all the remaining missiles, and then took control of the fusion missiles on board.  The upgraded life pods were usually too fast to hit, and a glancing blow would be deflected by the shields.  The dropships zipped between Covenant frigates and Seraphs, either being too far away from a pulse laser turret or too close to one of their own be hit.  Despite this, nine of the life pods and three dropships were brutally destroyed by the Covenant.  Seconds later, plasma torpedoes ripped the once-proud _Revenge_ into large chunks that floated lifelessly in the combat zone.  They had not noticed or targeted the three HARBRINGER-I missiles, however…

          The AI did one last check to make sure all friendlies were out of the blast radius, then sent the coded detonation order to the warheads.

          The huge blast reverberated silently through the blackness of space.  Even quite a distance away in the _Maw_, the Admiral could feel the vibration and the ship rocked slightly.  The only survivors were seven of the Covenant ships had moved out to engage the _Maw_, _Vengeance_, and the _Aurora_.  The ships that had stayed existed for a millisecond longer, then were gone-completely disintegrated by the enormous destructive force of the three warheads.

The Admiral growled angrily over the COM.  "_Aurora_, _Vengeance_, let's give the _Revenge_ and the crew that lost their lives a final salute!  Fire all MAC guns!"  The three remaining ships fired as one, eight blazing blue rounds as a final remembrance to the lost ship and the dead crew members.

          After this emotional act, the Admiral was back to his senses.  They were now at a serious disadvantage with only three ships remaining, even though there were no Covenant ships in the immediate vicinity.  Once again, he found his thoughts drifting to the ground team.  He squashed these thoughts away as the remaining thirty-one life pods with the _Aurora__._  The dropships split up, two of the seven remaining to each ship, and three to the _Maw_.  Whatever the future held for the three remaining ships, they wouldn't go to the end without a fight.

Inside the captured Covenant cruiser…

          James leaped out of bed the instant his alarm went off.  He quickly readied for battle and strode briskly out of his cabin, heading for the hastily added shield charging station in the Marine quarters.  He saw to his satisfaction that the Marines were pulling on their own armor and lining up at the shield charge station.  Once James reached the station, he stepped inside and keyed a series of commands.  The two pillars started turning slowly, radiating a soft gold-yellow color.  He watched the shield bar fill up in his HUD.  When it was full, he pressed another button and the pillars spun quicker, which were now glowing a violent shade of red.  With a blast like a plasma pistol, it discharged its energy load onto the SPARTAN's suit.  The shield bar blinked red and pulsed a familiar warning through his armor's speakers, then refilled.  Satisfied, he stepped out of the charging station and marched towards the bridge.

          The heavy blast doors slid open and James stepped into the command center.  Commander William Elysium was standing where a golden commander Elite would-in the middle of all the holograms on the center platform.  He was chosen to lead the cruiser because of his extensive knowledge and study of Covenant systems.  The AI, Keyes, made in memory of the heroic captain, walked among the displays in holographic form, occasionally modifying something.  He had been made the same way as Cortana, from a flash clone of a living person's brain-an unusual procedure.  He had a similar mindset and appearance to the late tactical genius.  Most AIs were made from deceased peoples' brains.  Several control stations had been set up in a ring around the platform, lieutenants manning them.  Technicians and AIs had worked countless hours and days to reconfigure the ship for humans.  The displays around Elysium showed weapons status, shield status, hull status, COM traffic, radar and other scanner readouts, and cameras around the ship.  One was zoomed in on the residence of the Prophets.

          Elysium turned and greeted the SPARTAN.  "James, good to see you're well.  That fortress's shields are stronger than anything we've ever faced.  They must have a huge underground reactor fueling the generators or a third layer of shields.  It's also quite possible they have both.  Either way, we need some backup to penetrate it," he explained.

          "We could ask the ships in orbit, if they're not too busy," said James.

          "Just what I had in mind.  Keyes, open a connection to the _Maw _on secure channel Alpha-Red," the Commander said to the AI.

          The COM screen flashed, then showed the familiar, commanding figure of Admiral Stanforth on it.  He had a faint sheen of sweat on his forehead.

          "Sir?  Is everything all right up there?" asked the Commander nervously.

          "It depends of what your view of "all right" is.  Alright, Elysium, you'd better have some good news for me.  We've just lost the _Revenge_.  I hope you've been doing ok planetside," said the Admiral."

          "Well, sir, we haven't penetrated the heavy shielding on the Prophets' fortress yet.  But our losses haven't been catastrophic.  However, that building's shields took several minutes' worth of pounding for Scorpions, Warthogs, rockets, and just about anything else we could throw at it-including a salvo from this ship.  James and I are requesting assistance to take down that thing's shielding, sir," reported Elysium.

          Stanforth cursed quietly.  "It might also be easier to hold off Covenant ships from inside the atmosphere, the descent will wear down their shields, and we have a Covenant cruiser to make up for the _Revenge_.  But it will also be more dangerous for the ground crew, and we won't be able to use nukes.  Well, no matter what way I look at it, it seems that if I refuse your request this mission will be over.  You've got the assistance.  We're on our way.  Stanforth out."  The display winked off.  The Commander and SPARTAN both gave a sigh of relief.

          Back on the bridge of the _Maw_, Stanforth outlined the descent plan.  "We're going to get burned from the descent.  Divert top shield power to the lower sections.  Fire thrusters briefly, then let gravity to the rest.  Havoc, calculate engine re-activation time so we don't slam into the ground."

          Seconds later, the three massive ships were going down through the atmosphere.  The bottom of their shields glowed yellow, sparkling and cracking.  They held easily, and soon they met up with the Covenant ship.  It was an odd battlegroup-two massive gray human cruisers, the majestic silver Covenant cruiser roughly the size of those ships, and the smallest ship, the destroyer _Vengeance_.

          On the screens of the ships, Stanforth's weathered face flicked on.  "All ships, charge MAC guns.  Elysium, for your ship MAC guns translate to plasma torpedoes, and plasma Archers translate to pulse lasers.  Ready a salvo of MAC rounds.  Fire on my command," said the Admiral.

          The four ships turned towards the distant fortress.  The air rippled with the magnetic fields and the air of the Covenant cruiser burned an angry crimson.

          "This is the _Aurora_, we're good to go."

          "_Vengeance_, guns at your command."

          "Elysium reporting; plasma ready."

          "Fire!" ordered Stanforth.

          Two red fireballs and eight blue streaks sped towards the structure.  The MAC rounds hit with destructive energy.  The shield rippled outwards from the impact like a raindrop.  The plasma impacted later, distorting the protective surface.  It stuttered then returned to its normal state.  The guns on the fortress heated purple-red, then lanced out at the _Vengeance_.  Havoc had strategically placed the ships so that their weapons were at maximum effective range, so the shots scored only glancing blows.  The blasts were so powerful that they still blew away three-quarters of the shield.  The ship withdrew to recharge its shields.  The pulse laser turrets on the captured cruiser glowed electric blue, nearly ready to fire.

          "_Aurora_, get out into their firing range for a second to lure them to fire.  Move or get back as fast as you can or get burned to hell.  Have all power to forward shields.  Elysium, your pulse lasers are much faster than an Archer, so they'll be useful for this.  Transfer fire control to Havoc.  Havoc, get a firing solution to have laser impact as those bastards are firing," commanded the Admiral.  Mystified, but unhesitatingly loyal, the ships complied.

          The _Aurora_'s engines flared and the ship rumbled forward.  In the distance, the guns on the fortress charged again.  With a bang, the ship's captain hit maneuvering thrusters and the ship rocketed out of the deadly beam's path.  It streaked onwards and then dissipated.  At the same time, Havoc fired the pulse laser turrets.  They obscured the guns in bright neon light for a second, then all that remained of one turret was molten metal, smoke, and flames.

          The crew on the ships cheered.  Even Stanforth flashed his rare smile.  "Good work, Havoc.  But they'll only fall for that trick once.  Now we have no other choice but to punch through that shield.  Are those Archers ready?" he asked the weapons officer.

          "Yes, sir," the Lieutenant replied.

          "Fire at will!"

          An entire row of twenty pods opened, and 720 missiles left blue trails leading to the fortress.  The other two human ships took the hint and launched Archers as well.

          The Admiral tapped a button, opening a COM channel.  "Keep hitting the shield with anything-it can be even one missile, because it'll stop the shield from recharging.  Havoc will give you constant firing solution updates to keep fire constant."  The AI quickly went to work, along with the rest of the crew.  Now that the ships were in atmosphere, the rear of the empty Archer pods could be opened and mechanically reloaded without explosive decompression and having techs sucked out through the pods.  Techs handled the giant reloading machines, which had a five-pod by five-pod grid that could load twenty-five pods at once.  The ship carried 500 bundles of thirty-six missiles, one reload for each forward and aft pod. 

          Swarms of Seraphs descended from their overhead cloud cover.  Their energy weapons flashed and impacted on the humans' shields.  The Admiral cursed and quickly gave another order out.  "Dammit, where did those fighters come from?  Don't divert your fire, they're trying to split our attention!  Launch your own single ships to deal with them!"  Longswords blasted out of the launch bays like a group of bats.  Sleek teardrop Seraphs joined them out of the captured ship's bays.  Their controls, like the captured ship's bridge, had been extensively modified and reconfigured for human hands.  They also had FOF tags planted inside, so the heads-up display on the Longswords' windows wouldn't mark them as enemies.

          The fighters fired chainguns and mini-pulse lasers.  The Covenant broke their tight formation to minimize losses, but they did this too late.  Several of their fighters were cut down before they even moved.  The rest picked targets to engage.  It was an endless cycle of chasing and being chased by enemy fighters-at least endless until one was cut into pieces by enemy fire.

          The meager human fleet continued bombarding the residence of the Prophets.  Every hit was shrugged off as if the MAC rounds and plasma were nothing more than mere annoyances, although a human or Covenant flagship of equal size to the fortress would have been disintegrated long before now.  Granted, the aliens could not retaliate, but it was become clear that the shields weren't going down quickly, either.  The ships needed time, time that was quickly running out before the next Covenant fleet was recalled.

          "Havoc, this isn't working.  And at this point I'm fresh out of ideas.  I need you to come up with something, and fast," said Stanforth urgently.

_          "There is one possibility, sir.  I have detected a faint network of metal, most likely piping or tunnels that lead straight from the wreckage of the plasma gun platform to the base of the fortress.  This passageway is very faint and frequently blocked by things, which I assume are legions of Spec Op or other high-ranking alien veterans.  Going through these will either be the key to victory or suicide.  Another thing worth mentioning: there is a slight signal from a FOF tag inside the fortress.  Can't get exact readings on who it is, but it's definitely worth looking at.  It's your call, sir,"_ reported Havoc.

          The Admiral had his response ready.  "It may be highly risky, but we have no other choice.  Have James and a select elite team ready by 1900 hours.  In the meantime-"

          Once again, enemies descending from the atmosphere cut him off.  "Alien bastards, how many times is this going to happen?  In the meantime, we will engage any incoming Covenant ships.  _Aurora, Vengeance_, Elysium, let's engage!  All fighter squads: attack the fortress.  Those guns are too big to track you effectively, just don't fly right in front of one and don't approach on a straight attack vector.  Keep weaving back and forth.  We just need you to prevent that shield from recharging!" ordered Stanforth.  The fighters broke off from their battle and hit their afterburners.  In an orange and blue flare, they blasted towards the fortress.  Plasma from its guns streaked by, doing nothing more than making their shields flare from the heat-shockwave.

          The Seraphs that the humans had been fighting pursed them, but made the mistake of running straight into the four capital ships.  With a flash of plasma autocannon and pulse laser point-defense weapons, the fighters disappeared in puffballs of plasma and smoke.  The Covenant ships were now in range.  The tactical display screen readout showed thirteen ships charging them.  Pulse lasers fired and were absorbed by the opposing ships' shields.  Archer pods opened and discharged their deadly contents.  A plasma bolt hit the _Vengeance_ as it moved to cover the retreating fighters.  It turned and retaliated with its twin MAC guns.  The destroyer that had fired at it turned sharply to avoid one round.  The other slammed into the shield, which simmered and barely shook the damage off.  A second later, Archers from the _Vengeance_ tore through the weakened barrier and crumpled the nose up like paper.

          Suddenly, a giant Covenant ship descended through some cloud cover, shields glowing from a recent atmospheric descent.  A turret turned and fired on the _Vengeance_.  The silvery beam burned away at the shield, broke through it, and drew a long gash in the ship's armor.  Decks could be seen through the ragged hole in _Vengeance_'s hull.

          "Damn!  It's a flagship!  And it has the advanced new Covenant weaponry! Concentrate fire on it!  _Vengeance_, haul ass out of here any way you can!" yelled Stanforth.  The destroyer turned and fled on full burn.  It shrank to a small dot in the distance.  Four frigates pulled of from the attack on the others to chase it.

          "All ships, fire MAC guns!  Archers to impact after!" ordered Stanforth.  Six MAC rounds flashed and slammed into the shield.  It winked out and two rounds smashed into the hull.  Twin plasma bolts from Elysium's ship punched two gaping holes in the hull.  The turret swiveled to face the Aurora.

          "Watch it, _Aurora_!  All power to forward shields now!"

          The protective screen distorted as more power was channeled to the front.  The turret sparked and the beam impacted.  The shield glowed yellow and the beam held, then sliced through, scarring the armor with the power of a Covenant pulse laser-much of it had been stopped by the heavily reinforced shield.

          The deadly beam turret on the ship swiveled and fired at the retreating _Vengeance_.  It cut through recharging shields, meters of protitanium, and several decks.  By a stroke of luck the Covenant gunners had hit an area that had been previously damaged by a pulse laser and therefore was weakened.

          "_Vengeance_, damage report!" said the Admiral.

          "Sir, we have major damage on three decks-a hole right through them.  It went right through our armor plate and near our MAC capacitors-our guns are offline," responded an officer on board.

          Both MAC guns offline.  The Admiral knew that the offensive capabilities of the ship were seriously reduced.  With only a limited amount of Archers, the ship was nearly useless in a large firefight.  With one ship destroyed and another with no MAC guns, the situation was becoming more hopeless.  There were no extra linear accelerator coils to replace those lost, so it could not be repaired.

One hour later…

          The captured Covenant cruiser hovered over the elite team's insertion point.  The human ships were in a tri-point formation, protecting it.  The battle was over, with no ship sustaining any more serious damage after the flagship was brought down.  James and a team of forty ODSTs floated down from the ship's gravity lift.  All were armed to the teeth with both human and alien weapons.  They entered the half-melted structure cautiously, crouching low and fingers on triggers.  A NAV point showed on all of their HUDs, what Havoc had outlined as the door leading into the tunnel.

          An ODST rounded a corner of a smoked-out control panel and saw a faint contact flicker on his motion tracker.  He flicked on light amplification on his HUD and saw a shadow move behind a stack of blackened crates.

          "Sir, I've got contact, my position," he said over the team's personal encrypted COM channel.

          "Roger.  Squad, surround the area," commanded James.  The team fanned out and took up firing positions behind rubble and other cover.  The Spartan moved in, assault rifle leveled.  He leapt out behind the crate.

          He saw a wounded Grunt lying in pain on the floor, black patches on his white armor.  A needler lay nearby, but the Grunt made no move to grab it.  James moved forward and jabbed the barrel of his gun in the Grunt's face.

          "Alright, Grunt, you're going to tell us exactly what's down the tunnel," he said in a calm but unmistakably deadly voice.  The Grunt's headpiece, aside from provided the methane for the creature, was recently upgraded to contain human to Covenant translation software so it supposedly could listen in on human orders and provide intel.

          "What…tunnel?" croaked the alien through the translation software.

          James whacked him with the butt of his rifle.  The Grunt squealed in pain.  "Don't play stupid with me!  You know what tunnel I'm talking about.  Tell us or die!"

          "I don't know about…any tunnel," replied the Grunt slowly.

          "Well, we're not getting anything out of him.  Either he doesn't know anything or he's not talking," said James.          He opened a channel to the ship and reported the wounded Grunt so they could capture it.  His team continued on in pairs.  An ODST Sergeant arrived at the blast door supposedly leading to the tunnel.  He kicked it open and pointed his assault rifle through it.  Nothing.

          The Helljumpers were about to move in when suddenly the Sergeant's shields flared and an Elite growled.

          "They're camouflaged!  Open fire!" said James as he targeted a blurry outline in the wall.  A Helljumper flicked on his shotgun's flashlight, making the stealth Elite a little easier to see.  A few bursts from the humans' weapons and the silver alien slumped to ground.

          "Damn, now they know we're here for sure.  Ditch all the stealth plans, if you see one of those alien bastards, don't hesitate to blow their brains out!" said the Sergeant.  "Watch your asses now…"


	12. The triumphant few, pt II

Chapter Twelve-The Triumphant Few, Part II

A/N: Damn, I had to cut the chapter again, just because I had to get something put up. I couldn't finish this story because I am just too pressed for time. Chapter Thirteen to be put up (hopefully) by the end of September. Yep, that long of a time. Sorry.

It was eerily dark in the passageway to the Prophets' fortress. All the tunnel lights had either been shot out or turned off. All the troops turned on light amplification for their helmet displays, as flashlights were more like signal beacons. Once they engaged in bat tle, it was safe to turn them on. There was a steady drip of water up ahead, adding more suspense to the already tense situation.

A soft clatter of hooves alerted James to the presence of Grunts. The ODSTs in the front crouched down in firing position, then moved forward. One tossed a grenade.

"What the? GRENADE!!!" screeched a Grunt. There was a pillar of flame and the bodies of four black-armored Grunts flew everywhere.

"Spec-ops…" said James softly. "They only have the most veteran teams here…"

Plasma fire lashed out from down the hall. A cluster of Elites stood, firing rifles at the team. They concentrated fire on a single ODST. He fell with serious plasma burns. The others covered him and returned fire with their weapons. The Elites were outnumbered five to one, and it was soon over. After the confrontation James had a medical team come down to rescue the wounded soldier. However, he had already lost a lot of blood and was dead. The Spartan gritted his teeth and continued on.

They continued down the confined space, cautious for any more enemies in the tunnel. Suddenly, an ODST stepped forward and a cleverly placed plasma mine exploded, taking him and three other soldiers out in a blue explosion tainted with blood and armor.

James quickly made a fist, a signal to stop. The others froze, knowing that another step could cost their life. He pulled a grenade from a belt pouch, and the others around him did likewise. He knew that the chain reaction could cause the tunnel to collapse, but at least the entire tunnel wouldn't because of the tough Covenant metal-lined walls. Besides, the aliens' metal was known to be incredibly resilient and James hoped that they would hold, and it was better than stepping on mines and blowing up. They tossed their grenades and scrambled back for cover. There was a loud bang and a series of explosions that marked the chain reaction of mines going off.

James turned and saw that there were ragged holes in the wall and floor of the tunnel but he ran an analysis with Havoc that determined it was safe. An advance scout team of four moved up the tunnel, crouched down low and with weapons ready. They passed through the tunnel without more encounters with the Covenant. James was puzzled at first by the lack of resistance, but quickly surmised that the bulk of enemy forces lay ahead.

Soon the humans arrived at a solid metal blast door. A quick scan from Havoc revealed it was over a meter and a half thick. That made grenades and rocket launchers useless. James solved the problem by having the captured Covenant cruiser fire its pinpoint accurate pulse lasers through the ground and burn away the door. He grabbed a NAV marker to help the gunners find the target. Then James ordered the ODSTs to move back down the tunnel so they wouldn't accidentally be hit. The cruiser's turrets began to glow blue as they built up charge. The _Aurora_, _Maw_, and _Vengeance_ drew fire from the fortress's guns while the cruiser attacked. The first shot only made a large hole in the ground, but the second was directed straight down the existing hole and lightly scarred the thick door, which was as thick as Covenant starship battleplate. A third and fourth shot managed to punch through the thick metal, leaving the path into the fortress wide open.

The Spartan snaked a fiber-optics probe along the ground and through the breach. His breath momentarily caught in his throat. Roughly forty brown-furred muscular creatures stood pointing large weapons at the hole in the blast doors. The creatures were about the height of Elites but far bulkier. Their weapons were arm-mounted on their right arms and ran all the way along their forearms and extended out from their three-fingered hands. Blue plasma glowed through what looked like ventilation points on the guns, ready for discharge. Strapped to the aliens' left arms were jagged swords, which to James's relief were not plasma. Slung across their shoulders were chains of what looked like ammunition. As for armor, the aliens wore chest and backplates, between which brown fur stuck out. They also had a few bits of armor on their arms and legs. Some had large silvery objects strapped to their forearms, presumably energy shields like a Jackal's.

James kept the probe online and sent it via video feed into the team's HUDs. They needed to know what they were up against to prevent catastrophic errors, like underestimation of the enemy. He could not discern their reactions due to the faceplates of their helmets, but some made subtle movements that showed their surprise. James opened up a COM link with Havoc to discuss the situation.

"Havoc, I need you to calculate the trajectory so Elysium can fire a pulse laser to neutralize those things just beyond the door. I'm sending you a video feed of them now," he said over the COM.

_"Negative,"_ said Havoc. _"The shield protecting the fortress is preventing me from getting a good shot off at those things. To hit them would require an extreme angle of fire that I cannot provide. These Covenant pulse lasers have a limited trajectory, due to their strange turret design. We only got off the first shot because it was not quite so extreme of an angle,"_ reported the AI. _"Wait…I'm intercepting a Covenant transmission. Translated literally it's just religious gibberish, but I have made it more understandable. It says that 'Brutes are being sent to cleanse the infidels from the tunnels.' I believe that this communiqué is referring to those creatures."_

James cursed softly. Then he switched to the team's COM channel and gave orders. "Havoc says it's impossible for to kill those Brute things with a pulse laser from the ship. Looks like we'll have to engage them directly. First, we need to soften them up. Jackhammers down the tunnel first, then we attack. Don't charge out, that might be suicide. Wait for my signal."

The five ODSTs carrying rocket launchers stepped up first. They lay down flat for a better shot angle, and then sighted the Brutes through the launchers' scopes. There was a whoosh and wave of heat and light. Five orange-blue streaks were seen briefly before they disappeared out of the tunnel. There was a chain of explosions and howls, and then everything was silent again. The ODSTs fired off another volley. More explosions and alien shrieks of pain were heard. The ODSTs on the ground dropped the empty Jackhammers and unslung assault rifles or shotguns from their backs.

James was about to give the order to move out when three large blue blobs arced through the blast doors. They burned furrows into the ground, much larger of a scar than an Elite's plasma rifle would've made. Another two shots flew into the tunnel, but this time the plasma exploded, almost with the force of a plasma grenade. Luckily for the humans, they were still where they had retreated to allow the pulse laser to fire, which was farther up the tunnel. However, the shots were bad news to the Spartan, because they meant different types of ammunition than just plasma bolts. Charging into the room would mean heavy losses because of the bottleneck entry point and the explosive ammunition.

"Grenades on my mark. One, two, mark!" The soldiers tossed frags and plasmas into the room. Most fell short, but the explosives created a cloud of smoke and plasma that distracted the Brutes. "Get in there! Go go GO!" James yelled over the COM. The ODSTs rushed into the room, firing at the shapes that were moving around them through the haze. The ones who wielded shotguns stepped up front, dealing heavy damage to the Brutes. Soldiers with assault rifles hung back and fired controlled bursts at the aliens. Return fire lashed out, but most of the shots missed. The ones that did hit weren't consistent or concentrated enough to penetrate shields. Soon the smoke cleared and the Brutes gave a bone-chilling war cry. They grouped and returned fire.

Two ODSTs were cut down by heavy plasma fire. So far the Brutes had not used their grenade-type ammunition because of the close-quarters battle. The Brutes that had shields stepped up to the front. Plasma-charged bullets pinged off of the reflective devices, but they would not hold. The Brutes retreated until they could use their explosive fire. The ones standing behind the shield-bearers fired deadly plasma grenades over their companions' heads. Three shots hit near one ODST. He screamed and fell. The Spartan and his team kept up a steady stream of fire, bullets ricocheting off the shields and making holes everywhere. Soon the Brute shields overloaded and they began to take fire. Assault rifle fire ripped through the chest armor of one Brute, but it charged and tried to run an ODST through with his blade. The Helljumper rolled to one side, reached down on his belt for his own combat knife and plunged it into the unarmored side of the Brute. The alien howled in pain, but slashed sideways with his sword, catching the human unawares. The sword blow was so powerful it overloaded his shields and cut a gash in his armor. The soldier fired full-auto with his assault rifle into the Brute's back, finishing off the alien.

The remaining Brutes filled the chamber with plasma fire. Helljumpers ducked behind anything they could find-Covenant crates, stray pieces of metal, and some just lay flat on the ground. One of the human forces had not reacted quickly enough and was hit by several volleys of plasma. His shields were quickly burned away and his armor suit was peppered full of holes. James sprinted out and lifted the Marine easily and sprinted back to the tunnel. He removed the man's helmet and checked his pulse: weak, but there. He carried the man a little further down where a group of medics stood with M6DP pistols. A few remained on guard while the rest tended to the wounded man. The Spartan turned and sprinted away, eager to get back into the action.

Back in the large room, the Brutes were still spraying the area with plasma fire. They had turned over some crates for cover but didn't need them, as the Helljumpers were pinned down and not really returning fire. James tossed two frag grenades to make the Brutes duck. When they poked their ugly heads back up, the ODSTs and Spartan were all standing over their barricades. They opened fire, cutting down three more Brutes. The Covenant hunkered down and returned fire. The aliens sprayed the area with suppression fire, forcing the humans to duck. James could see it was a standoff; both sides could just fire and hide behind barricades.

Suddenly a crate was blown into pieces as three grenade-type rounds hit it. Shrapnel from the crate peppered the two ODSTs hiding behind it. One was killed and the other was badly wounded. He managed to drag himself back into the tunnel where the medics were waiting. James took a quick overview of his forces. There were only twenty-nine humans left. Nine ODSTs had been KIA, and two were too wounded to continue the fight. James considered himself and his platoon extremely lucky. The Brutes could have inflicted a lot more casualties to them had they used better defense tactics rather than standing in a line and firing.

A few Helljumpers tossed plasma grenades, throwing them over the Brutes' barriers. The Brutes fled down the hall, but some had been stuck. They howled in helpless rage and charged at the humans. However, the three-second fuses went off before the aliens could get close enough to do any damage. Blue-black blood sprayed the walls and floor. Five Brutes stood at the end of the chamber to make a last stand while the rest ran for reinforcements. Apparently, they were not as concerned with battle honor if the Prophets were in danger.

James ordered his forces to spread out to avoid splash damage from the Brutes' grenades. Some Helljumpers whipped out pistols and took potshots at the Brutes, but they raised shields. The rounds bounced harmlessly off of the shields. The Brutes gave one last war cry and all charged for James, firing grenades and plasma crazily at him. He rolled to one side, but still caught some plasma rounds. His shield dropped to a quarter.

"Return fire!" yelled the Spartan. The ODSTs had moved to the walls of the room, and the Brutes were charging right between them. Heavy shotgun and assault rifle fire slashed through armor and flesh. Four of the Brutes fell, writhing in pain on the floor. Blood, bits of flesh and metal pooled all around their bodies. The remaining Brute leaped high in to the air right at James. He shot the alien in midair with his assault rifle. Rounds ripped through the Brute's chestplate, but it drew back its sword arm for one last strike. James jumped to one side, but the lighting-fast Brutes stabbed at the Spartan's leg. His weakened shield gave, and the sword cut through rock-hard layers of MJOLNIR armor. James cried out in pain as the sword broke through his skin, but he continued firing at the Covenant alien until his weapon's clip was exhausted. The Brute twitched once and fell over, withdrawing the sword from James's leg. A ragged hole was ripped clean through its chest from all the plasma-charged rounds.

James lay still, gritting his teeth with pain. The medics had seen the danger was over and came out of the tunnel to tend to the Spartan. James first removed the damaged section of his leg armor. Then a medic filled his leg up with biofoam, which stung his leg but relieved the pain somewhat. The medic wrapped the leg up in a bandage and offered the Spartan a painkiller, but James refused. He locked his leg armor back in and limped off the where his squad was covering the door. The door hissed open as James approached it. He threaded his fiber-optic probe around the corner and found himself staring down nearly a hundred plasma rifles and needlers of Covenant Elites.

**Bridge of the UNSC _Maw_, holding position above destroyed Covenant gun platforms.**

Admiral Stanforth paced the bridge of the _Maw_ restlessly. So far no Covenant ships had descended through the atmosphere to battle the tiny human fleet, but who knew how many ships were massing above. The Covenant were beginning to jam long-range scanners and communication, so he could not scan for enemy ships above. The Admiral also hated standing around while UNSC soldiers were fighting and dying elsewhere-namely in the Covenant Prophets' fortress. Suddenly the radar screen flashed a warning-a large object at extreme range, coming down through the atmosphere.

The Admiral yelled for his COM officer to open a narrow-band short-range COM channel to the rest of the ships. "We have incoming radar contact, only one ship. Everybody, get ready to fire! We're going to send that bastard to hell!" A small box in the corner of the forward viewscreen snapped on, showing the charge percentage. Other screens showed magnetic ripples of MAC guns charging and red balls of plasma building up on the other ships in the battlegroup. Stanforth zoomed in on the incoming ship. It was square-shaped and gray, nothing like a normal Covenant ship. Realization hit the Admiral like a plasma bolt. He opened the COM channel again. "All ships, hold your fire! It's one of ours!" Screens showed the human ships' weapons powering down and the plasma cooling from the captured Covenant ship.

Havoc displayed data from the new arrival's encrypted identification chip, located inside each UNSC vessel. It was the UNSC carrier _Midway_, named after an ancient aircraft carrier of the United States of America, an old country on Earth. A link inside the information document led to a history of the carrier's namesake. Stanforth decided to read it, having not much else to do unless the Covenant attacked. If they did, Havoc or some other bridge officer would warn him anyway.

The aircraft carrier itself was named after the famous Battle of Midway. It was fought over and near the tiny U.S. mid-Pacific base at Midway atoll and represented the strategic high water mark of Japan's Pacific Ocean war. Before this battle, Japan possessed general naval superiority over the United States and could usually choose where and when to attack. After Midway, the two opposing fleets were essentially equals, and the United States soon took the offensive. The Japanese intended to surprise attack the American fleet, but the surprise was thwarted by superior American communications intelligence. The perseverance, sacrifice, and skill of U.S. Navy aviators, plus a great deal of good luck on the American side, cost Japan four irreplaceable fleet carriers, while only one of the three U.S. carriers present was lost.

Stanforth closed the historical reference and returned to the information document. The _Midway_ sported a single MAC gun and 200 Archer missile pods for self-defense, as well as point-defense guns. The _Midway _was protected by four meters of protitanium-A on all surfaces. Its aircraft included a full wing of 400 Longsword fighter/bombers. In addition, the carrier had ten launch bays, five each along the port and starboard sides. Each launch bay held forty fighters and had ten refit and repair stations to fix damaged fighters. The ship also had upgraded reactor technology, giving it enough speed to keep up with the other human vessels.

A COM channel opened up. The transmission was filled with static, due to the Covenant jamming systems. "This is Captain Daniel Nelson, reporting for duty from Earth, sir," said a male voice over the COM. "Sir, Earth HighCom sent us after your transmission for help. They thought you could use a lot of assistance, so they sent a carrier instead of a destroyer."

"We sure do," replied Stanforth. "We have no idea how many Covenant are coming for us. Did you get a rough estimate of how many enemy ships there are while you were up in space?"

"Sir, we didn't get an exact number, but I estimate that there are from thirty to fifty Covenant ships in orbit over the planet," Nelson answered.

"Damn…" the Admiral cursed softly. "We'll be hard pressed to hold them off. Best hit them quick while their shields are still weak from descending through the atmosphere and hope their plasma weapons aren't charged yet. Elysium, take potshots at long range with your pulse lasers. Nelson, don't launch fighters until battle is imminent. No need to waste fuel on patrols. The Longswords might need the fuel later. All ships, hold position and charge MAC guns."

There was a chorus of ayes as the captains carried out Stanforth's orders. Once again magnetic distortion could be seen near the ships' MAC guns. Plasma gathered along the captured cruiser. The crew tensed for the inevitable battle.

"_Sir, radar is picking up twenty-two Covenant ships descending through the atmosphere. Jamming is making in-depth scans useless. I have no exact information as to the enemy ships' tonnages. I estimate ten medium-tonnage frigates, five destroyer-class, and the remaining seven as cruiser-class. The frigates seem to be leading the charge to soften us up first," _Havoc reported. This was bad news for the Admiral; unlike their earlier confrontations, which were mostly against weaker frigate-sized Covenant ships, they would be against much more powerful ships.

"All ships, spread out in arrowhead formation, pointing upward. The _Maw_ will take point, with the _Aurora_ and the Covenant cruiser providing heavy fire support at our flanks. _Midway_, prep and launch half of your fighters from each launch bay. 150 Longswords to hunt-and-kill, remaining fifty guard the ships. All other ships will launch their fighters to assist in the attack. _Vengeance_, hang back and pepper the enemy with Archer missile fire. Once missile pods are all depleted, stay near the _Midway_ and its protective screen of fighters," Admiral Stanforth ordered. The ships quickly formed their formation. Alarms sounded, calling all crewmembers to general battle stations. MAC guns and plasma weapons charged. Two hundred Longswords streamed out of the _Midway_'s launch bays, twenty from each bay. They formed up into five-fighter squadrons and went to their designated position, marked by Havoc.

The first ten Covenant frigates could be seen clearly through the clouds. They turned sideways to face the _Maw_ and its battle fleet, readying for a salvo of plasma torpedoes. Motes of red light collected on their lateral lines.

The UNSC ships fired their opening shots. Seven blazing MAC rounds and two crimson plasma torpedoes streaked towards the Covenant. Two frigates were blown out of position by multiple MAC round impacts. One of the frigate's hull flexed and shattered as three MAC rounds struck it. The other ship's plasma charge dimmed out as its reactor power faded from a MAC hit. The ship plummeted down and exploded in a giant nuclear fireball on the ground. The two plasma bolts struck another frigate. The Covenant vessel's shields dimmed and winked out with the first impact, and the second shot burned a hole from the ship's nose all the way into the ship somewhere amidships. The plasma hit the craft's reactor and it, too detonated in a ball of fire and plasma. Fragments of silvery metal showered the other frigates' shields, making them flare with the impacts.

The Longswords formed up in attack positions and concentrated their attacks on one frigate. Plasma missiles and chaingun fire dotted the vessel's silver-gray shields. The human fighters swarmed all around the ship, harassing it with constant fire. Point-defense pulse lasers flashed out, hitting a few fighters. Seraphs launched from the frigate's launch bay in an effort to stop the Longswords. The alien fighters were vastly outnumbered, but the honor of the Elite pilots demanded that they defeat their enemies, or in this case, die trying. Puffballs of smoke indicated that the Seraph wing were being torn apart by the Longswords. Pulse lasers flared out again, grazing a few fighters' shields but also tearing right through four fighters. Before long the huge amount of fire from all the fighters overloaded the frigate's shields. The hull was peppered full of holes as the Longswords strafed it with plasma chaingun fire. They launched missiles at the pulse laser turrets, taking out the only real threat to the fighters. The Covenant ship listed to one side, flames and smoke pouring from all over the ship.

The remaining six operational Covenant ships were almost ready to fire. Their lateral lines were strips of superbright crimson, too bright to look at for too long. The _Vengeance_ fired hundreds of Archer missiles, showering a frigate with high-explosive missiles. The shield quickly overloaded and the hull was holed up from stem to stern from all the Archers. The magnetic plasma guidance systems were hit, and the plasma collecting at the ship's side dispersed in a red haze. Only one of the ship's pulse laser turrets was still operational. Blue light collected near the turret.

Five balls of plasma erupted from the Covenant frigates' sides. A pulse laser also flashed out, playing along the _Aurora_'s shield. The _Maw_ dodged one plasma bolt with its thrusters, but it began to loop around to track the cruiser. Stanforth yelled for the weapons officer to fire the MACs, which had recharged. The ship rumbled and spat three MAC rounds at a Covenant frigate. It fired its own thrusters and avoided one of the shots. The other two MAC rounds slammed into the frigate, slicing through its protective shields and tearing two huge holes through the ship's side. The hull was almost completely crumpled from the concussive force, and its magnetic guidance system was destroyed along with most of the other systems. By pure luck the _Maw_ had hit the frigate that had fired the shot that was chasing it, so the plasma no longer had any guidance and dispersed.

The other four shots spread out. Three slammed into the _Aurora_'s shield. It flickered solid yellow, then cooled. The other plasma torpedo hit the _Midway_'s shield, doing minimal damage. The carrier retaliated with its MAC gun, which blew one frigate out of its formation. Then the _Midway_ launched a swarm of missiles, turning the frigate into a hole-filled chunk of metal that could barely keep itself aloft.

The four undamaged Covenant ships dispersed. Blue fragments of light collected near their pulse laser turrets.

The _Aurora_ fired its three MAC guns. The rounds thundered through the sky and hit an enemy ship. Its shields lapsed and the rounds tore the ship apart. The frigate broke apart, its superstructure literally shaken apart by the supersonic impacts.

The other three ships all fired their pulse lasers at the _Aurora_. The beams of light cut through the human ship's weakened shields. The ship rocked as the lasers cut crisscross patterns along the cruiser's starboard armor.

The captured Covenant ship launched two more plasma torpedoes. They quickly sliced through a frigate's shields and burned two large, ragged holes in its side. The ship turned and accelerated towards the human formation in a last-ditch attempt to take an enemy ship down. A volley of pulse lasers lanced out from the captured cruiser. The lasers cut through the frigate's engines. The ship gave a lurch and the stern disintegrated as the engines exploded. The remainder of the ship plummeted down and landed in a crumpled heap on the ground.

The Longswords swarmed another frigate and within a minute had overwhelmed it. The remaining ship was brought down by a MAC salvo from the _Maw_.

The Admiral blew a sign of relief. He clicked on the COM channel and said, "Good work, people. Take a breather and get ready for the next attack."

On board the Covenant cruiser, Commander Elysium ordered all unnecessary processes to be halted to free up reactor power. He needed the extra energy to replenish plasma stores of the ship's weapons. The _Maw_ and _Aurora_ let their shields recharge, then began to feed energy to their MAC cannons. Most of the Longsword interceptors returned to their respective ships to restock ordinance and get some quick repairs.

"_Covenant ships detected. Short-range scans match their shapes to that of seven Covenant cruisers. Unusual amount of chatter on the Covenant battlenet…intercepting a transmission. It seems that their destroyer fleet has encountered a setback. Wait a moment…I'm trying to decipher their religious babble…got it. This setback is said to be caused by a 'Traitorous Guardian of the Great Ones,' as they call it. Combat units of this 'Traitorous Guardian' seem to have infiltrated several ships, and the Covenant on board need additional support from an Elite team waiting on an outpost. They are pulling out of the system to this outpost. In the meantime, ten cruisers are being dispatched to cover for them,"_ Havoc reported.

"Traitorous Guardian of the Great Ones?" Admiral Stanforth wondered aloud. "I wonder if that could be the-" The weapons officer interrupted his thoughts.

"Sir, all MACs ready to fire. The other ships are waiting on your command, also."

"Very well," he said, turned his mind away from the Covenant transmission. Then he turned on the COM system again and said, "All ships, pick targets and engage at will." He clicked off the COM and yelled, "Fire the MACs! Arm Archer pods A1 to A10, firing solution to impact after MAC impacts!"

The ship's lights dimmed and the hull shuddered as the MAC guns fired. A rapid series of thumps marked the Archers launching. The MACs tore down the shields of the targeted Covenant cruiser, crumpling the hull. The ship spun in circles, but fired maneuvering thrusters and launched a salvo of two plasma torpedoes at the _Maw_. The Archer missiles struck a moment later, mangling the hull and creating holes everywhere. The ship's port side was barely recognizable, but the starboard side was relatively undamaged, except for a little MAC concussion. The high-powered rounds had gone through shields and smashed a portion of the port armor and decks, but the rest of the ship absorbed the damaged. Bloodred light collected at the starboard side's lateral line.

The two plasma torpedoes washed over the _Maw_'s shields. In the distance Stanforth saw the badly damaged cruiser fire off one last plasma torpedo at the _Maw_ before it was set upon by Longswords and destroyed. Unfortunately, the plasma torpedo hit the _Maw_ before the ship's plasma regulation and control systems were hit. Five Covenant cruisers remained-the other cruiser was destroyed by a MAC salvo from the _Aurora_ and twin plasma torpedoes from the captured Covenant cruiser.

Pulse lasers flashed and raked the _Maw_'s weakened shields. A screen flashed in the corner of the forward viewscreen, indicating the shields were down to 27% overall integrity. Admiral Stanforth bit his lip, hoping that he and his fleet could defeat the Covenant before he began to take serious damage.

Plasma erupted from the enemy ships' sides. Ten torpedoes sped towards the human line. Six arced off towards the _Maw_ and the other four sped towards the _Aurora_. Stanforth barked for maneuvering thrusters and the ship rumbled out of the way of the deadly Covenant energy weapons. They moved to compensate but had to make another loop around to hit the ship.

"MACs ready, sir!" yelled the weapons officer, sweat beading around his forehead.

"Fire at will!" replied the Admiral. He was more concerned with the incoming torpedoes. There was no way to stop them unless they destroyed the ships guiding them, and that would require considerable luck. Unless…

"Havoc, can you track the magnetic fields of one of those plasma torpedoes?" he asked the AI.

"_Yes, Admiral. I will display the fields on-screen when I get them. This might require some time, though,"_ replied Havoc.

Time. It was something that the humans had none of. However, if those plasma torpedoes got through, they could do significant damage, especially dangerous when the _Maw_ was in enemy territory. "Alright, Havoc, we'll give you your time. Keep firing thrusters to avoid those torpedoes! As long as you can!" Stanforth said to no one in particular, but everyone knew the urgency of the situation.

The huge cruiser continued to dodge the high-powered plasma bolts, but the power used by the engines prevented the shields from recharging fast enough. About thirty seconds later, a waving blue field extended from a pair of plasma torpedoes, tracking them to a distant Covenant cruiser.

"Arm Archer pods A11 to B5, firing solution on that cruiser! Are the MAC guns ready to fire?" yelled the Admiral.

"Sir, MAC guns at 87% charge. Archers armed and firing solution online. Firing now," reported the weapons officer.

Archer pods opened and hundreds of missiles sped towards the enemy cruiser. They impacted on the shield, which rippled and went out. A few missiles made it through, doing minimal damage. The MAC guns fired a moment later, crossing the distance in a millisecond and reducing the ship into a broken, useless hulk. Two of the plasma torpedoes tracking the _Maw_ slowed and turned into a red haze. The remaining four zipped through the cloud, splashing over the _Maw_'s shield. One dissipated on the shields, but the other three punched through and converged on one point in the armor. They all hit the armor protecting the ship's reactor. They burned a large hole in the cruiser's side.

On the bridge, the impact was barely felt. But armor reports showed the reactor area's armor was down from four meters to one. It was dangerously thin when the humans were outnumbered so badly.

Once again, the Covenant ships fired pulse lasers. They scarred the _Maw_'s hull badly in several places. One beam played along the aft Archer pods. The pods were heavily armored, but some still detonated inside their tubes due to the heat.

Explosions rocked the ship and threw the Admiral off his feet. He got up to and immediately looked at the aft Archer pod camera. There were large smoking holes in the ship's side, although most of the pods were still operational.

The Admiral sighed. Things were beginning to look very, very bad for the humans.

**Human Special Operations Team, Fortress of the Prophets.**

James stared in shock down the barrels of alien weapons. There was almost no way he and his squad could take on a hundred Elites. They were all black-armored veterans, too. Each one was easily a match for an ODST, if not more. They were also running low on grenades, so they wouldn't be effective either.

James patched the images over to his team members' HUDs. They were also worried about the heavy resistance. There was virtually nothing they could do but charge. They had no explosives or air support. They were seriously outnumbered and outgunned. They needed heavy firepower, something they had none of. There was a rumble in the ground-probably a ship crashing or exploding on the ground.

Suddenly, James had another idea-the tunnel looked like it was big enough to fit a Warthog through. A few Warthogs, or more specifically, their chainguns, would help to even the odds. However, all the Warthogs were loaded back on board the ships, which were currently heavily engaged with the Covenant battlegroup. The temporary base camp had also been dismantled and put aboard the captured Covenant cruiser. However, the _Vengeance_ was not really participating in the fight, due to its disabled MAC guns. It was possible that it could offload a few Warthogs via Pelican dropships.

James switched his COM channel to the fleet channel. He opened up a link and said, "_Vengeance_, this is ground team. We are trapped in the basement by at least two platoons of Spec Ops Elites. Requesting Warthogs for fire support, over."

"Roger that. Hang on, the birds are bringing them down. We also have twenty Helljumpers aboard who are itching to fight. Don't mind if the come down with the Pelicans?" said the COM officer on the destroyer.

"Sure, we could use the help. Just make sure none of those Pelicans get fragged," replied James.

The _Vengeance_ exited the human formation and descended down near the destroyed plasma cannon station. Four Pelicans flew out from one of the destroyer's launch bays. They were all carrying Warthogs on their magnetic-attachment surfaces. Two of the dropships also had a squad of ten ODSTs in them.

A pulse laser hissed by one of the dropships. Its shields flared and then cooled. A Covenant cruiser turned one of its pulse laser turrets towards the dropships. The turret glowed blue, almost ready to fire. The _Vengeance_ quickly moved in front of the dropships to screen for them, taking the energy beam on its shields.

The Pelicans landed and quickly offloaded the Warthogs and Helljumpers. Some of the ODSTs drove the Warthogs and manned their guns, others just went in the building on foot. The dropships dusted off and returned to the _Vengeance_.

Down in the plasma gun control building, the Warthogs moved slowly to avoid wreckage. They were the first into the tunnel and quickly sped off to where James and the others were waiting. The other Helljumpers jogged along at a brisk pace, not wanting to miss the action.

James heard the familiar sound of a Warthog's engine revving. He turned and saw four Warthogs shoot out of the tunnel, each filled with an ODST driver, gunner, and passenger. The twelve soldiers dismounted and saluted the Spartan. He returned the gesture and had the soldiers stand separate to the first group. The Spartan waited for the Helljumpers that were running through the tunnel on foot to arrive. Then he outlined his plan through the group COM channel.

"For those of you who have just arrived, around that corner is a hundred or more veteran Elites waiting for us to poke our heads around the corner. Charging them would be suicidal. Even luring them out would've been, until these Warthogs arrived. You've all fought the Covenant, nobody here is green. You've seen these guns mow down anything but heavily armored vehicles, or Hunters. The enemy may outnumber us but these chainguns should give us the extra firepower needed to win. We'll split into two teams, Alpha Team and Bravo Team. A-Team will stay to guard the gunners and take their places if needed. B-Team will lure them out, and also will be standing by to take down any Elites that remain if they retreat down the corridor. The Elites won't just keep charging out to get massacred. Their "battlefield honor" ideas may have been replaced by actual tactical thinking, since Prophets are in danger. We need to hit them in the back while they're going back, hard and fast. Any questions?" James asked after outlining his plan.

"How are we going to lure them out?" asked one ODST.

"What's your name, trooper?" asked the Spartan.

"Private Slavin, sir. William Slavin," replied the soldier.

"Good man, Slavin. I was hoping someone would ask that. Well, most of us are short on grenades, but we might need them later. So we'll have to do it the old-fashioned way. B-Team and I will go out in the hallway and take a few potshots at them. That'll probably get those Elites pretty riled up, and you know how Elites act when they're pissed. Their "honor" crap pushes all other rational thought out, and it may take a few hundred chaingun rounds to change their minds. Now, to make the team choosing simple and fair, all the fresh soldiers will be with me in B-Team. A-Team will consist of all you Helljumpers who came with me all the way through the tunnel. You'll get the chance to relax, man the Warthog's guns, and do some relaxing guard work while B-Team gets right up close to those Elites," answered James. "Any other questions?"

There were none. "Good. A-Team, take positions up around the Warthogs. Bring over things for cover-crates, anything you can find. B-Team, check your gear and weapons. On my signal we'll charge into that hallway and lure out the Elites," said James. As soon as the Spartan saw both teams were ready, he yelled into the COM, "Get into that hallway! Move it, B-Team!"

The Spartan and twenty ODSTs rushed into the hallway, firing blindly down the hall. There were flashes of shields down the corridor and the war growls of Elites. They returned fire, huge amounts of plasma rifle fire burning up three soldiers where they stood. The rest of the plasma bolts flickered out on shields. The slower needles from needlers flew down the hall at Bravo Team. "Get back into the room!" James yelled as the needles approached. The human ran, jumped, and rolled back into the large chamber. One soldier didn't move fast enough, and a flurry of needles embedded in his left forearm's armor plate and exploded, punching through his shields and mangling his arm beyond recognition. The Helljumper screamed in pain as two of his comrades dragged him out. They pulled him behind a row of barricades where the medics were hiding.

Meanwhile, the Warthog gunners had opened fire. Plasma-charged rounds tore through shields and armor like butter. Elites dropped like flies in the narrow entrance. Few had time even to shoot before they were cut down. Before long the Elites retreated back down the hallway. A large pile of smoking bodies lay in the doorway. Blood was splattered everywhere on the floor and on the wall behind the entrance. The door could not even shut because of all the Elite corpses. It looked like at least forty Elites had been killed, so sixty remained. This was still too many for Bravo Team to face. James had hoped more Elites would have stuck around to get killed, but apparently some of them had common sense.

"A-Team, get up off your asses! We need you to help hit those Elites in the back! Move it! B-Team, move into the hallway and fill it will suppressing fire!" James yelled into the chamber before stepping into the hallway and firing with the rest of his team.

Assault rifle fire and shotgun blasts flashed down the hall. Ten Elites were cut up into ribbons and blown to the floor by the huge amount of fire. The others turned and peppered the group with plasma rifles and needlers. Most of the troops rolled back into the chamber to avoid being hit, but once again a soldier reacted too slowly. His shields instantly blazed out. Plasma burned through his armor and needles exploded everywhere. James yanked the trooper out of the hall but the man was already dead.

James set the body aside and fed his probe back around the corner. The Elites were dragging some random metal objects out of an antechamber at the end of the hall and blocking the hall with it. He primed his last two plasma grenades, leapt into the passage and threw them down the hall, hard. Plasma fire sprayed all over his shields, bringing them down. He dodged back into the room but was hit by a few plasma bolts. They singed his armor badly in a few spots but did no critical damage. There was a loud _thump_ as the grenades went off. When James put his probe back around the bend, part of the hallway was blackened and a few smoking Elite bodies lay about.

A faint FOF signal, separate of the ODST squad, flickered on James's HUD. It quickly faded. James boosted his scanners in an effort to re-establish the signal, but his efforts were in vain. He pushed his questions about the signal out of his mind and concentrated on the situation at hand.

The Spartan estimated that there were from forty to fifty remaining Elites. The Spec-Ops team were still a formidable force and had heavy armor and shields. They also had firepower to match the humans, though their tactics were simple. James mulled over the possible ways to breach the aliens' defense. They could charge and probably overwhelm the Elites, but they would probably do so with heavy losses. He could not afford to loose many more soldiers in an op like this. They could also back the Warthog into the hall so only the gun stuck out towards the Elites. That could be dangerous but if the driver remained alert he could quickly withdraw the gunner from the Elites' line of fire.

He scanned the room and picked out two Helljumpers. One would drive and one would man the guns. The driver carefully aligned the LRV with the door, then switched gears to reverse and pressed the acceleration pedal. With a jolt the Warthog's LAAG was in the hallway, almost scraping the ceiling. The ODST gunner immediately opened fire, catching the Elites by surprise. Five were killed by the rounds that slashed down the hall. The Elites opened fire, burning holes all around the gunner. He crouched down lower behind the LAAG's metal shield and returned fire. The vibrations from the gun shook his teeth, but he continued to pour it on full auto.

The Elites also crouched down behind makeshift barriers. A few Elites lugged crates into the room. They didn't use the containers as barricades; instead the aliens ripped them open. Inside were a rack of the emplaced shields the Covenant used, which were similar to a Jackal's, plus some strange power cells. 12.7mm rounds flew everywhere, sparking Elite shields. The Elites quickly set the stationary shields up and activated them. The Covenant had set the shields up one after another, like layers. This would mean that after the first three or so shields went down, the first one would be back up, making the whole thing a waste of bullets. The gunner realized this and stopped firing. Occasionally Elites would fire out from the unshielded sides of the hallway and get grazed by a few rounds. That would do nothing more than damage their shields, which would recharge. It was a stalemate.

James crouched in near the gunner to see what was going on. He sized up the situation and saw that there were six layers of shields protecting the Elites. The Spartan had several solutions to the problem, but most of his ideas required heavy firepower like explosives. Eventually he decided to have a few ODSTs crouch or lie under the Warthog's line of fire and help to bring down the shields with their own weapons. He watched as the first five layers of shields were overloaded, but the first one suddenly came back online. He ordered his troops to cease fire. A few Needler rounds flew out from the barricades, which damaged one Helljumper's shields. He and the others lay down flat in front of the Warthog gun to prevent themselves from being hit. One of the troopers threw a fragmentation grenade. It clinked down between the first and second layers, then detonated.

Four shields sparked out and overloaded. Pieces of shrapnel flew everywhere, embedding themselves into the four shield generators. They were disabled completely as the chunks of metal tore through them. All the other humans, including James, opened fire. The chaingun and assault rifle rounds easily tore through the last two shields and killed three Elites. The rest hunkered down and returned fire. They brought down one of the Helljumper's shields, and he threw himself down so the Elites could not hit him unless they stood up-which would get them killed. Another ODST whipped out a pistol and disabled the remaining two shield generators.

The Warthog gunner continued firing to break or fragment the barricades, which were nothing more than bits of metal and a few odds and ends. Suddenly, the gun clicked. The gunner looked down at where the belt should've fed into the chamber, there was nothing there. He had run out of ammo.

"Shit!" he cursed over the COM. "I'm out of ammo! Somebody bring in a refill!"

"Marines, you heard him! Someone better rip a box off ammo off of one of those other Warthogs!" James said. "Everybody else in this hall, give covering fire! Keep those Elites' heads down! They'll try to kill of some of us now that we don't have heavier firepower!" The ODSTs and Spartan started firing. Sure enough, some of the aliens had stuck their heads up to give the humans a piece of their mind. A shower of plasma-charged bullets made them decide otherwise. An Elite's shields flared and went out from multiple bullet hits. The alien was about to duck when it slumped down, a smoking hole in its head armor. The gunner had taken his M6DP out and utilized its scope to kill the Elite.

Soon a Helljumper came running in, carrying a box of ammo with the belt running out over the side. He slapped it into the box receiver and fed the belt into the chamber. The gunner checked that everything was ready to go, then started firing again. What few Elites still were firing back soon ducked like the rest of their comrades. One of them acted too slow and was torn through by the AP rounds from the LAAG.

The confrontation was once again a stalemate. The Covenant were heavily entrenched and well protected from anything but grenades, which James and his squad had few of. The humans, on the other hand, had the heavy firepower of the Warthog's gun.

Suddenly, one the Elites threw a grenade. Two others followed his example. One fell short but the other two landed near the cluster of humans. The ODSTs quickly ran and jumped out the door, but one didn't move fast enough. His shields blazed out and his legs were blown off in the two explosions. Some others dragged him to safety and waved the medics over. James put his weapon down and tried to stop the bleeding before the medics came.

One especially zealous Elite took advantage of this momentary disorientation of the humans to attack. James turned to face the doorway to see a black-armored Elite. It gave what passed for a grin among its species and a blade of energy flashed on in its hands.

The Elite roared a battle cry and charged straight at the helpless Spartan.


End file.
